Tempest of Emotion
by Allegra B
Summary: Two Psy, both devastatingly powerful, both courted by madness in their own unique ways – and both bound by different kinds of loyalty to their race. Yet fate throws them into a tempest of emotion that might not only destroy them both but take the whole world down with them. Alternative story for Kaleb (x OC). Set after the events of "Tangle of Need".
1. Prologue - Chapter 1

**Author's note: **

This is an alternative story for Kaleb Krychek. He gets to know an entirely new character that doesn't exist in the original universe by Nalini Singh.

Ok, I know I'm a little late with this. But let me explain: It all started while a lot of Nalini Singh fans were waiting desperately for Kaleb's story. So was I. And of course I had an idea in mind. So I thought: Why not write a fanfiction to kill the waiting time? I'd never done it before, and probably never will again, since it got completely out of hand. I had planned it as a novella of maybe 40,000 words, when I started writing in 2012. I don't know how it happened but it became a full novel. It took me so long because I have little time to write and almost gave it up more than once. But here it is. Finally done. Yay, I'm free! And I only expanded my waiting time to read further in Singh's storyline by five years!

My story starts after the events of Tangle of Need and probably deviates pretty hard from the original story line from there. I don't know yet, because I haven't read on in the series, since I started writing. Yes, I didn't read a single scene that takes place after Tangle of Need, before I finished this. Heart of Obsidian was waiting on my book shelf all this time, wrapped in real metal chains and secured with a padlock. I didn't want it to mess up the story I had in mind and frankly I didn't want to be discouraged by Nalini Singh's ideas and writing. I'm only starting to catch up with the story arc now.

I hope some of you will still be interested in the story and maybe give me feedback. Sorry if my use of language is off at times, because I'm not a native speaker.

* * *

**Blurb:**

Two Psy, both devastatingly powerful, both courted by madness in their own unique ways – and both bound by different kinds of loyalty to their race. Yet fate throws them into a tempest of emotion that might not only destroy them both but take the whole world down with them.

Kaleb Krychek is known to be one of those Psy who are most submerged into the Silence Protocol, ruthless, deadly and completely devoid of emotion. On his quest to take over the Net he even secured the alliance of the Council's secret assassins – the Arrows. When they provide him with a shield specialist, he finds himself intrigued by her – purely on a scientific, strategic level, of course. Or so he tells himself until he starts to realize that she evokes something far more dangerous inside him, something that might throw the world into chaos and destruction. Yet he is ready to risk everything for the worst crime known in the Psy world – feeling.

Alja Dardo is an Arrow, it's what her name means and it's all she was ever allowed to be, although she knows her race needs her to be so much more. So she doesn't hesitate when the order to work under the former Councilor comes. And although she is far from Silent beneath the thick walls of her shields, she is not afraid of the most dangerous man on the planet. Having courted death all her life fear is a feeling she rarely allows herself. What she didn't expect was to confront a man that shatters all her disguises – not with his psychic powers but on an emotional level she has never experienced before.

* * *

**Prologue**

She only wanted back. Nothing else mattered. Everything would be better than this. She tried to rip herself free of the embrace she had sought mere seconds ago. But it did not give in, no matter how she struggled. She wanted to scream. But there was no voice for her to command, not even breath. There was nothing she could command but her own mind. And that seemed to be crumbling fast under the pressure of the other presence that was with her. She was trapped, torn apart, desperately struggling to get back to herself. But the path was blocked. Instead there was something – someone else. There was suddenly so much more _being_, more _self_ around her. The information started to swirl, just too much to be taken in by a single mind.

_So this is how it ends._

* * *

**Chapter 1**

"Krychek has proven loyal beyond our expectations. We could simply _ask_ him for help in this case." Vasic said to his fellow Arrow looking over the barren desert landscape. The two assassins had met in one of their secluded places as always.

"And tell him the truth about her? We don't know enough about his motivations to risk that. His transient alliance with Nikita Duncan doesn't mean he shares her views about the demise of Silence. I think it would be safer to just make Alja seem useful to him and he'll guarantee for her safety as long as she is. It is a high risk anyway." Of course Aden would have the most doubts about their plans. He had always been the most protective about the girl – now a woman for quite a while – the Arrows had hidden for so long. He was only a few years older than her and they had spent part of their youth in the same training facility. And Aden had known almost from the start, that there was something very special about this child that was trained to be an Arrow although her profile never really seemed to fit.

"You realize she brings us dangerously close to disobedience again, if we have to keep secrets from Krychek. The Squad should never have kept her in the first place. We were supposed to be loyal to Ming at the time. I don't know what Ghetty thought, when he defied his orders. Now look where it has gotten us." Vasic was an Arrow through and through. Loyalty to the Squad and its leader came before everything else for him.

"Yes, the first defiance was disputable. And it has brought a conflict of loyalty that should have been avoided by all means. But the point is moot now. The damage is done." It had been done more than twenty years ago, before both of them had any decisions to make in the case. "Alja is one of us now. Ming is no longer. It is clear were our loyalty lies. And we cannot risk her being exposed by someone like Krychek." If he knew of the potential that lay inside her, the Councilor might as well turn into her worst enemy himself. Keeping her as far away from any Psy with power had been their main strategy to secure her survival until this day.

"Alright then, secrecy it is. Have you also considered that he has become far too powerful and the other Councilors are starting to realize it? They might be at him any time now."

"Yes, but still I consider him the safest option, especially because no one would expect us to place her close to him of all people. If the rumors of her existence spread, she needs to be out of the Squad, before anyone starts looking."

"But don't you think he's perfectly capable of protecting himself? Will he even consider our suggestion?" The idea was to use the excellent defensive skills of the woman in question to secure her a position close to the one person on the planet who could maybe guarantee her safety against the enemies that were soon to be on her tracks.

"No doubt about his ability to get away alive, but to maintain his position of power he might want all the additional protection he can get in the long run. And if he thinks her an asset, he will protect her better than we can. So far only Ming knows that someone with her skills even existed. And he thinks she is long dead. Barely anyone even knows her face." At least no one who lived to tell the tale, she had made sure of it herself – the flawed girl that did not only have the power to change the Net forever but had withstood the harshest Arrow training. "We're just posing a capable Arrow with cardinal shielding in the orbit of an important powerbase. Her other qualities will stay well hidden. She's worthy enough for her obvious abilities. And I will make it clear, that we are not willing to make cannon fodder out of her."

"But we have to lay open some of her background. She's too conspicuous otherwise. Do you even think he would be willing to have someone with her defects around?" The woman that caused all their trouble was probably the only Arrow in existence whose Silence was not absolute. And it was bound to show sooner or later in her behavior, especially if things in the PsyNet went down as they had already started. For the first time in over a hundred years some people started to question the Silence Protocol, a psychological conditioning process that was imposed on every Psy from childhood on, to eradicate their ability to feel any emotion. Some even believed that Silence was about to fall.

"Krychek is a practical man. His actions are not influenced by false ideologies when an open mind can bring him profit in any situation. And it's not like we have any other options really."

"Right. So there's no point in discussing this further."

"I will get a message to her right away. I think she will agree to the job." Although she might not be fond of losing the privileges of freedom she'd had so far, she'd acquiesce to the orders of the Squad.

"Agreed. Just keep in mind that one day the truth might become an option." With that Vasic teleported out, leaving the other man behind contemplating the impact of the decision they had just made.

Aden knew full well that Alja Dardo would consent to any assignment. Currently they were running out of options to hide her and most of their forces were engaged in the hostilities of the civil war that had started among the Psy. Besides, brought up in the Squad Alja had the same fierce loyalty all Arrows had. But she was also a survivor, her otherness making her a lone being that could never belong to any group of Psy enough to subordinate her will to survive. If she sensed her life endangered by the Arrows, she might yet move her loyalties to a someone who promised better outcome on that plane. And that must not happen. As different as they might be, Kaleb Krychek and Alja Dardo were maybe the two most dangerous individuals in the Net. They were not to be allowed to pair up beyond the current requirements. Not when still no one knew for sure what ambitions the most powerful telekinetic in the Net might have.


	2. Chapter 2

**Secret personal files of the Arrow Squad**

Eva Milhaud:

* * *

Main designation: Tp 9.8

Secondary designations: S 7.4, Ps 2.3, Tk 3.0

Active service since 01.06.2046

Overall success rate: 98%

Relevant collateral damage: 11%

Current Missions: FF-7346

-Collecting information on the activities of the Forgotten in Nice, France

-Identifying possible targets for critical hit

-Covert elimination of identified targets

* * *

13.2.2053:

Last reports from current mission show a decline in relevant information – delayed elimination of confirmed target again – examine mental stability and conditioning at next check-up.

04.04.2053:

Medical check-up – no signs of mental instability, no signs of fractured conditioning – report confirmed two more individuals as targets for critical hit on local Forgotten community – instruction to eliminate targets given.

* * *

**Chapter 2**

Kaleb went through the mental file for the third time, making sure he had missed nothing. Allegedly because of the destabilizing political conditions, the Arrows had offered him a Psy-shield specialist to increase his personal security. That seemed a little odd, but he did not have their loyalty for long. Maybe such offers were a benefit he was entitled to have now. He had been inclined to refuse, when he learned that the suggested Arrow had a genetic disposition to partially reject the Silence Protocol – some human genes in her DNA profile. This usually meant instability and he tried to avoid that whenever he could. But when he learned that with it came an unparalleled ability to shield against any Psy power on a cardinal level, the outlook of such unique skills at his disposal had intrigued him. True shields were rare. Usually the S Designation was an addition for those who could either use their main designations of telepathy or telekinesis as exceptionally strong shields. A true S-Psy could shield against any psychic power including telepathy, telekinesis and even the lethal X-fire.

And the offer came at a very convenient time. He had just discovered a rise in the very small but increasingly refined attacks on his personal shields in the Net that were very hard to track. Someone was testing his shielding. He had an idea about the origin of those tests but couldn't yet prove it. His fellow Councilor Tatiana Rika-Smythe had quite a reputation as a shield breaker and their goals had collided significantly over the last months.

Apart from that, he would finally get the chance to study someone who could obviously function properly despite a flawed Silence Protocol. Usually everyone like her would have been rehabilitated at the first hint of her defect. Rehabilitation was the psychic brain-wipe executed on those who dared to reject or break Silence. It left the treated with barely a trace of their former personalities. The living dead, was what the other races called them. But Alja's abilities and connection to the secret assassin squad of the Net had protected her from such a fate – which was even stranger. Usually the Arrow Squad demanded absolute Silence from its members, and for good reason. Most of their abilities required iron control to not be devastating, almost like his own. Only on his control depended the safety of the entire Net. And emotion disrupted that kind of control.

But maybe not always…Recently he had been tempted a few times to wonder if there ever could be a way for him to open up the vault of stone in his mind, the one he needed to contain whatever emotional impulse arose from his subconsciousness.

_Probably not_. He cut off the compelling thought at its root.

Kaleb had not felt since he was a child, his Silence absolute. Only once he had gotten one short taste of emotion. When he was sixteen, he decided to free himself from the conditioning his trainers – especially one extraordinary teacher – had installed in his mind. After he had truly understood what that man was making out of him, he had wanted nothing of him inside his mind. And that one fateful night after he had his final lesson, after he had gone one step too far down the path that this teacher had shown him, he had finally been able to free himself – at least partially. He couldn't act against the older man yet, but he was getting stronger and his control over his abilities was unparalleled in the Net. So they had enough of a stalemate that Kaleb could finally risk to refuse to attend any more of the Councilors extracurricular activities, while he kept playing the part of the grateful student otherwise, using all the connections and resources he could get through his powerful patron.

So the first thing he had done after he had eluded the direct influence of Santano Enrique, was to unravel the constraints and traps of dissonance that the killer had added to the usual conditioning to ensure he would stay in iron control of his deadly powers. But as soon as he had caught a glimpse of what awaited him in the world of the feeling, he had known that for him there would never be a way back to allowing emotion: for him there was only pure darkness. After what he had witnessed throughout all his childhood, madness was all that awaited him.

That had also been the day he had almost fallen prey to the DarkMind, the evil twin of the NetMind that consisted of all the fear, hate and anger those of his race didn't allow themselves to feel. The NetMind, a neosentience that lived only on the psychic plane of the PsyNet, acted as the librarian and guardian of the Net, fulfilling various functions in the psychic network of millions of minds, not all of them understood or even known. Even less was known about the DarkMind. The current theory was that it harbored the Psy's negative emotions suppressed by the Silence Protocol. He had known that dark entity since he was a child. It was as if it was drawn to him by the evil around him and the massive amount of fear and hatred, Kaleb had silenced over the years. And that night it had lunged at him as if to feast on the twisted emotions it found inside of him, wrapping oily tendrils of madness around his mind. But instead of allowing the darkness and the intruder it had attracted to control him, he had built his own cage of conditioning, an even tighter one than that of his teacher, to keep the madness contained. Since that day he had an even deeper connection to the DarkMind, one that allowed him to partially command it. But was also a constant reminder of the cracks in his sanity as well as the ones in his conditioning, he had to keep closed tightly forever for the sake of the Net.

The other side of emotion he had never known. He had no concept of beauty, love or goodness. The only connection he had left to emotion was through the tainted, oily presence of the DarkMind that sought him out so often.

He pushed these thoughts away as he always did and focused on Alja Dardo's file again. The Arrow they were sending him would be an interesting asset to integrate in his power games. And if it somehow turned out to be a trap, he would find a way to use it back on the one who set it. Not trusting anyone was something he had learned early in life.

* * *

Alja had received the confirmation of her mission via e-mail in the morning and had packed her few belongings after a short breakfast that consisted of the usual nutrition bars. She had been in one of her safe places in Spain after her last mission and had taken an early flight to Moscow. Now she was as ready as she could be to meet the maybe most dangerous and powerful man on the planet. And paradoxically her task was to protect him.

At least that was the pretense under which she came here, to meet a man she had never seen in person before and yet probably knew him better than most other Psy. She had made sure of that the moment she learned her assignment with him had been discussed by her superiors, having her own very exceptional ways to get information that was considered to be buried too deep in the Net to find. And strangely enough the special friend who provided her with such information had not only shown her everything she needed to know about him, but had also given her an unmistakable hint to trust him. Given he was considered ice cold, ruthless and absolutely lethal by most, this advice was a very strange idea and she still mused about the implications of what her special friend had meant by giving it.

But no time for that now: Arriving at the main building of the Krychek headquarters Alja went straight to the office on the top floor she was directed to and knocked without hesitation. Cool and efficient as she was trained to. No sign that she was not the perfect, Silent Psy she was supposed to be; her Silence appearing even better than that of almost any other Psy, because she was practicing it consciously every day to keep it – or at least the appearance of it – up.

The "Come in" sounded from inside almost in time with her knock. She was being expected.

Entering the room a telekinetic blow hit her. It would have swept any usual Psy, human or even changeling off his or her feet and right back out of the office. She only felt it brush over her shields, which partly absorbed the power and partly deflected it into the empty corridor.

The Councilor wasted no time.

Alja realized that without her immunity to any Psy ability she would have reason to be scared out of her wits by this man. But as it was and with the carefully practiced Silence, that was adjusted to the human genes in her as far as possible, only a slight uneasiness about the confrontation with such power remained.

Kaleb saw not a hint of surprise on her face. She must be quite well conditioned despite her flawed genetics or very experienced to have expected the unannounced probation. Probably she was both. Good.

Quickly he assessed her physical appearance, not making the mistake of ignoring it like so many of his race did. She was dressed all in black, the unofficial uniform of an Arrow. The clothes seemed fit for fighting: cargo pants and a plain black T-shirt under an elastic leather synth jacket. She looked exactly as in the pictures in her file. Her complexion was Caucasian, although her dark hair suggested some Mediterranean inheritance as well. It was a rich, dark brown with a tint of red and way beyond regulation length even for Psy women. She wore it tied back in a tight braid at her nape that fell almost to her elbows. She was a little taller than average, medium built, her face just as mediocre: not to be considered unattractive by those who cared for aesthetics but with no features that made it stick out in any way. A face you saw and forgot if you didn't concentrate. This woman probably could stay under the radar with any of the species – given she could hide those night sky eyes that mirrored his own.

No, not exactly his own: His were an endless, silent void sprinkled with cold, still lights. The stars in hers gave a strange impression of motion although they didn't really move, like a night sky that was falling away into infinity. He found that those eyes slightly – irritated him. He did not have another word for the notion that came up in his mind at the restlessness in them.

Nevertheless they were a cardinal's eyes, indicating that her psychic abilities lay beyond any way of measurement. That brought him to the next question: Why had the Arrows offered him a cardinal shield as a bodyguard, and one whose very existence seemed to have been classified information to this point? He had never heard of her before. And his research in the Net had been completely fruitless although he had access to even the best hidden data sources. That itself wasn't so unusual. Most Arrows were mere shadows in the Net. Only she didn't even seem to have a shadow. She had even barely left traces on the reference missions that were listed in the application file from the Squad.

"Welcome Miss Dardo," he greeted her with a voice of pure ice, from a face carved in stone.

In the second between the Tk blow and the greeting Alja had taken in the room and the man occupying it. The room was nothing special; furnished with cool efficiency like any other Psy office, only a little larger and everything a little more luxurious than necessary – no doubt only to display the power of its owner. A large probably computronic desk stood in front of the opposite wall. To her left stretched a front of large windows, to her right a few shelves and two chairs on the wall.

The Councilor leaned against the desk, dressed in a plain, dark, gray on gray suit, coldly handsome. A statue of granite. The man fit the office perfectly – aside from the fact, that probably no furniture in the world could have matched the power his personality bathed the room in, even though his face showed no hint of emotion. It was all even planes and angles, pure maleness. Only those slightly too sensual looking lips gave him an appearance of humanity. You would expect them to smile any moment, but she was sure they never had – not genuinely.

Her senses screamed he was dangerous even without his Tk to affect her. But that was not new to her either. She stayed cool outwardly.

"Councilor," was her response to his greeting, only accompanied by a curt nod. It conveyed the message: no small talk necessary.

"I understand you came here right from the airport. Do you need rest or can we start discussing your assignment right now?"

"Now is fine." She anticipated a lengthy examination of her emotional flaws and the sooner this was over, the better.

She seemed short-spoken, even for a Psy. He would need to put on pressure in order to find out if it was just a mask. He signaled her to sit down on one of the chairs he quickly pulled in front of the desk.

He moved with such ease, she assumed he was using his Tk right now, but he wasn't so showy as to make the chair float in place. She had barely seated herself, when he began to speak again. To her surprise he did not start with the obvious – the genetic flaw that had led to an incomplete implication of the Silence Protocol in her. It only tensed her more. She did not let it show.

"Dardo is Italian for Arrow. That seems not a very creative alias."

While attempting at that little small talk he tried to locate her mind in the Net and found he couldn't, although he could sense it in the room. But even there she showed nothing of her power, the appearance of her mind was just ordinary; an average Psy mind with shielding that maybe qualified just above fourth grade classification. He searched for a way in.

"It is not an alias. I was born an Arrow and with those who know who I am there never was a need of any other identity. I don't know why they choose the Italian word. Maybe I have some Italian ancestors." That was an outright lie. She'd had another identity once. And there was hardly anything she did not know about herself. What had not been told to her, she had coaxed out of her very special friend. But no need for him to know.

"Let's get to the subject of your job then: First I have some questions about your abilities. In some point your file wasn't very specific. It says you can deflect any Psy ability that is directed at you and any object or individual you're shielding. It does not however specify how your shields work."

He did not take the invitation to ask about her flawed Silence. Damn, did he try to stress her on purpose? She was at the job for five minutes and the man already unsettled her. How was that possible? It wasn't as if she wasn't used to manipulative communication techniques. She was good at that game too. At least she could provoke him.

"The mechanism is based mostly on the otherness of my skills. They are different from usual Psy abilities. You will find no points to attack in my shields. And they are simply very strong. It is my cardinal ability after all. If you do not trust my skills you are welcome to do your testing more thoroughly."

She was provoking him. He let her believe it worked. His next attack was telepathic and he increased the intensity to show he wasn't playing. Any shields built by someone below grade 8 Tp would be wiped away by it leaving the victim but a scrambled mass of insanity.

She had a little more time to think when the would-be-lethal blow hit her shields this time. So she deflected the attack back on him without effort. That was what really had required training: Controlling the airtight shields she had been born with in a more useful way by deflecting and redirecting the power applied rather than shatter or absorb it at its impact.

"Your shielding looks ordinary enough," he stated. Only it should be gone by now. But the same ordinary Psy mind was wavering in the room as if his psychic attack had never taken place. "I appreciate a good camouflage as well. How can your abilities be of use to me?"

She imagined she heard a fraction of thoughtfulness in his voice. "My usual shields cover a sphere with a radius of roughly four feet. As long as you are in that range they cover your body and mind as well. I can expand them to about up to two miles if necessary but I will need to increase my concentration with the radius. No psychic energy can enter that radius without my active consent." He nodded to indicate she should go on. The first and single movement since they had sat down. She was careful to mirror him exactly in his immobility. "Unless I actively block it, you can initiate psychic activity inside the shield radius and direct it out, but still not affect me unless I flex my inner shields to allow it. I can shield your mind on the psychic plane too, but that requires skin contact." That was the main reason her Net-shielding was not often used by the Arrows themselves. Physical contact was something the Psy tended to avoid, because it triggered bodily responses that might too easily lead to emotion. She was curious how the very Silent cardinal in front of her would react to the suggestion of being touched skin to skin with another Psy. To her frustration he did so by changing the subject finally and most unexpectedly.

"The file also says your incomplete conditioning doesn't impair your work. But as you will be a crucial element in my security, I need to know exactly in what other ways it might show."

Ah, finally he got to it. She was well prepared for that part of the conversation. But she couldn't help but notice his choice of words: _Incomplete conditioning_ – very careful not to insult her. Of course he didn't need to. Kaleb Krychek was rarely the man to make his resentments known through insult. He had other more terminate ways let people know if he rated them insufficient.

"The adjusted Protocol allows me to be Silent most of the time and contain any emotion that might well up under certain circumstances. So it only shows on the rare occasions when I need to valve the built up emotions. But it is not very likely I'll build up much. Working with the Silent gives very little reasons for emotions to stir."

"And if you should experience such a build up after all?"

Of course he wouldn't let it go. You didn't come as far as Krychek had in the power structure of the Net by ignoring possible risks like flawed Silence. It was a wonder he had considered the Arrows offer of her employment at all. "For that I have a differentiated set of mechanisms that do not involve any implications on my environment." She had almost learned that part by heart. It was crucial she didn't appear insecure in that area. "I integrated meditation techniques, physical activity and something I call _human contact_ in my strategies of emotional and behavioral control. So if my quarters are relatively quiet and you have a gym I can use, it will be enough. The human contact I might need on very stressful occasions … I can clear it with you, when I go out, should it ever be necessary during my work here."

That was a very mechanic and simplified version of the truth, but it was accurate in the points that counted, and the only one technical enough to be understood by a true Psy.

Her capability of emotion influenced her far more than she would ever admit to anyone, let alone a Psy. It was an integral part of her being, of how she functioned, no matter how hard she kept it in check to act exactly the way she was expected to. That the adjusted Protocol enabled her to Silence had been another lie. The best it could do was dampen her feelings but mostly it consisted of harsh discipline not to let any of them show in her conscious or unconscious behavior. No need for anyone to know that. She was a survivor first. And she would survive for the task she had known to be hers since she had started to think.

"_Human contact_ sounds like a very uncommon concept in the pursuit of Silence. It is usually considered to be rather a threat to the Protocol, even more so if physical contact is involved. Please specify how this is supposed to help in your case."

"The human contact is provided by talking to someone who generally understands the concept of emotion and can thus give support to weaken the impact of negative emotions. That way I also act out the emotions and release the tension. Physical contact is not necessary or desired. I only keep fleeting human acquaintances for the rare case I should need the emotional support." What she didn't say was that touch no longer worked for her. She no longer felt it on any emotional level. Paradoxically this was the one part of the conditioning that had stuck with her – in the end.

"Human acquaintances only or changelings too?"

How savage did he think she was? Changelings were simply uncontrollable. They were so raw in their emotions it always made her feel uneasy to be too close to them.

"No, changelings are way too unstable and too demanding for getting back emotional responses."

He didn't respond for several seconds, seemed to consider all he had learned so far. Or he just did it to pressure her more. She decided to go on the offensive. "Councilor, I do not want any misunderstandings in that area: You have only been given full information about my genetic disposition to reject the Protocol because of the trust and loyalty of the Arrow Squad. Not because any of it is supposed to restrict me in my work. On the contrary: my human genes provide me with a higher bone density and muscle mass than most Psy, which is an asset in the more physical aspects of my profession. And my Silence may be slightly incomplete. But I am a fully functional Arrow and I am very much in control of my abilities, as you have undoubtedly learned from my training reports and notes on my former missions." She was tired of being treated like she was disabled and decided it was time to show some spine about it.

He appreciated spine. And he was pleased to have her out of that short-spoken attitude so fast. So he let it go.

"Yes, your success rate is impressive although you have only been on minor assignments so far." _Minor,_ meaning mostly information retrieval and very few kills. "But you seem to have quite a way of getting people to act like it suits your purpose. And a surprisingly high percentage of individuals that were somehow involved in your missions, were submitted to rehabilitation afterwards. That would inspire speculations about more aggressive telepathic abilities than just the shielding."

Wow! He had done his homework. He couldn't have that information from the reports he'd been given. They contained only rough descriptions of her former assignments, most of them having been top secret, so that maybe only Ming LeBon – who was in command of the Squad at the time – had the full data on the missions. Krychek had to have done excessive research to put together the bits of information and get out the conspicuous rehabilitation rates. But it was not enough to prove her direct involvement. She mused for a moment on the strangeness of how close he had come to uncovering her biggest secret with his speculations about invasive telepathy and yet how far away from the truth he stayed with them.

"I can assure you my telepathy is limited to the shielding abilities and a common minor talent for telepathic communication. These incidents you speak of are most likely not directly be caused by me. I do not always know what casualties were taken into account by my superiors." She knew that explanation wouldn't suffice. But it was the only one he'd get from her. He could try to unravel the rest of her secrets himself. Good luck with it! The longer she kept him interested, the longer she was safe. But with a slight uneasiness she noted that this man had already perceived too much. He might yet uncover the truth about her powers despite all her precautions. And she would probably not get a minute of rest if he decided to test and pressure her further on her abilities – the ones acknowledged and the hidden ones. Surprisingly he left it at that.

"No, of course not. I also value subordinates who understand the concept of a need-to-know basis. I look forward to our collaboration. Can we start with a demonstration on the psychic plane tomorrow?"

So he wasn't going to back down from the physical contact it required. Somehow that excited her more than it should have. "Of course Sir, whenever you want."

"Good. My personal assistant will show you to your quarters." At that moment a blond woman with eyes of piercing silver entered the room, undoubtedly on a telepathic command. "This is Silver Mercant. She will be your contact if you need anything. I expect you tomorrow at eight."

"Sir." With a curt nod she took leave of him and rose to greet the other woman just as icily as expected. "Miss Mercant."

"Welcome Miss Dardo. Please follow me." Icy Psy charm in every word and move. Alja did as she was bidden without glancing back, but with a feeling his eyes were on her back. "Your quarters are on the sixth floor. Is that all your luggage?" she asked looking at the small duffel Alja carried over her shoulder.

"Yes, it is all I require. Will I reside in this building permanently?" She kept the conversation to the most basic points, acting strictly Psy. Silent.

"Mr. Krychek ordered it, yes. As I understand it, you will be part of inner security. It is only logical to keep you physically in the vicinity."

"Of course." A short escalator ride brought them several levels down.

"Down that corridor is the gym you requested. You can use it whenever you need to. It is open twenty-four hours." Naturally she'd want a gym. As an Arrow Alja needed to keep herself physically fit. But she had openly _requested_ it only minutes ago in her conversation with the Councilor. So he had already briefed his assistant telepathically. Alja wondered what else Silver knew. She was the perfect picture of cold Psy politeness. She seemed absolutely Silent. Did she know her new colleague was one of the very few beings in the Net who got away without that quality?

It turned out that her quarters lay only a few corridors away from the gym of the building and even had a small window. That was at least something. Aside from that, it bugged her a little that she was to live in the main building of the Krychek HQ. She had yet to get used to being in such an open location, exposed to constant observation instead of hiding her very existence and her otherness alongside from the whole world. And Kaleb Krychek's attention was the last thing she needed on her. But it was too late any way. Now she was on his radar and given his ability to teleport and the level of telepathy he was capable of, he could possibly quarter her on the other half of the planet and still breathe down her neck.

To her great relief at least Silver left her alone in the small two room unit after a short instruction about the proceedings in the accommodation unit. She'd also given her a schedule for her introduction to the security division for the next two days. The first meeting was set in two hours so she had a little time to accommodate.

Relieved she had passed the first roadblocks of her new situation, she let herself fall on the bed with a sigh. Probably a very emotional gesture, but after meeting one of the most powerful people on the planet, even a perfect Psy might need to relax a little. All in all she found she took it quite well. Being transferred into the lion's den for protection of the hyenas might be a strange strategy. On the other hand _strange_ was her steady companion. She could handle strange situations better than anyone. She had learned early, that she was a being so different, she would have to be two steps ahead of literally everyone else to survive. And that was also, what made it easy: It wasn't just her conditioning and behavioral control that kept her fear and excitement in check. Since she was a child she had known she had a purpose in this world only she could fulfill. She was made for that task and the Net wouldn't let something happen to her. Maybe that was just a remnant of her lonely days as a child, when she had to cling to every hope to avoid breaking under the pain and hardship of the training facilities, but it still worked, still gave her some calm in the eye of the storm.

It took her only a few minutes to unpack her things, among them a set of willow glass blades that were hidden in the lining of her leather synth jacket. They were highly flexible, deadly sharp and went undetected through every safety scan.

_An Arrow is never without a weapon._

The words from another time were reverberating in her head. Spoken in a lonely training hall where she had endured so much pain and yet learned everything she knew about the art of surviving as a lamb in a pack of wolves. Shoving the memory away, she placed three blades in her rooms so that they were hidden from sight but available if needed. One she strapped tightly along her shin before she removed the one on her forearm she'd worn before. Then she dressed in her usual sportswear and headed for the gym. After the long flight she needed to steam off some energy and get the flexibility back in her limbs. Usually they'd have gotten her a teleporter, but the unstable conditions in and outside the Net currently required all resources they had elsewhere.


	3. Chapter 3

**Secret personal files of the Arrow Squad**

Eva Milhaud:

* * *

07.04.2053:

Eva Milhaud just went dark – no trace in the Net, possibly due to heavy shielding – last report falsified – operation Forgotten (FF-7346) officially failed

08.04.2053:

Suspicion of collaboration with one of the targets (Daniel Calve, Forgotten, male) – Black OP team assigned for retrieval/elimination

09.12.2053:

Black OP team unable to find any trace of Eva Milhaud or Daniel Calve – no further damage to Arrow Squad or Psy community anticipated – File closed until further notice.

* * *

**Chapter 3**

Alja discovered that the gym really had everything: There were exercise machines and training weights, which she had no intention of using, her favorite style of exercise based on working against her own bodyweight so she could practice it wherever she needed. But to her delight she saw a wide sparring zone that was laid with training mats and a set of punching bags in different styles and sizes at one wall. There were even some training blades and swords. Maybe she'd also find a sparring partner among her colleagues in the security division. But for today going through her individual routine would be just fine. First she went through a set of forms in her favorite Kung Fu style. The flowing but powerful movements centered her mind while occupying her body. After only a few minutes she caught a slight movement out of the corner of her eye. She directed her next moves so she could sweep her gaze inconspicuously over the direction from where she had perceived it.

_Great, I'm not going to have a moment of peace here, _she thought, when she saw who had entered the gym. Kaleb Krychek himself was leaning in the door frame in a way that that spoke of blatant relaxation. The posture meant nothing. It was solely for show. She went on with her practice forcing her moves to even more perfection. It shouldn't have been a problem. She was used to close scrutiny by her supervisors in the Squad and yet she found his presence somehow unsettling. When it got hard on her concentration, she switched to one of the big punching bags. And for the next twenty minutes hammered her fists, feet and knees into it with hard hits, pushing herself to the limits. But god, the man seemed to have time to burn. He still stood there, his eyes trained solely on her.

Watching her Kaleb realized something he had missed before: She was not only good at psychic camouflage. Few soldiers of her training could hide their physical skills so well. In his office this afternoon she had acted stiff and contained; a display of the typical Psy. But on the mat she moved like the true predator she was. Her movements flowing and precise like a lethal dance. He couldn't appreciate the beauty of it, but he knew perfection when he saw it. That woman had been trained by the best.

And now she wore training pants and shirt that were practically painted on her body all the way down to her knees, only flaring out a little from her lower legs. He saw sleek, strong muscles flexing with every move. Her built was far more athletic, than he'd have guessed, when first seeing her. She had the body of a soldier. But still there were all the curves that made her unquestionably feminine. Considering her physical appearance again, he got a sense of something off at the very edge of his awareness, but just out of his reach for conscious thought. There was something about her, that caused it, but he had yet to find out what it was.

When she was dripping with sweat, her bare knuckles sore from hitting the punching bag, Alja closed her training with a short series of stretching movements.

When he still stayed in place after she finished, she gave Kaleb a questioning look.

"We should spar some time," he stated bluntly.

She smelled another test.

"Is there a reason you examine my combat skills so closely? I was told I wouldn't need them on the job." _Shit._ She had shown a fraction of surprise. Now she had to hope her reaction didn't make it too obvious that one reason she'd accepted the position was to get away from the killing.

"You probably won't. I prefer to do most of my wetwork by myself. And for the rest I already have appropriate personnel." Arrogant. Yet dangerous. "I just thought it would be interesting to know how I perform, when my Tk is completely blocked. I never had an opportunity to test that before."

She hadn't thought about it so far. It would in fact be interesting to know how good he could do against her. And he had already irritated her enough that the thought of being able to give him a good beating seemed appealing. Noticing the mental slip, she reigned in the aggressive impulse at once but agreed nonetheless. She'd not back down from a challenge, even if it came in disguise.

"I understand. You can put it on my schedule whenever you like."

That had been easier than he'd expected. Either she was very confident of herself or very afraid of questioning his orders. And it hadn't even been a direct order. Anyway it was clear she wanted to get away from him now.

"Is that all? You scheduled a meeting with your security chief Mr. Delenko for me in half an hour. So unless you want me to start my work here being late…"

"You can leave in a minute. There's just one more thing: I could not find your mind in the Net. It should not have been easy but possible once I've had direct contact." And he'd made sure he knew the mental signature of her mind before she left his office.

"As an Arrow I don't officially exist. My mind is permanently camouflaged. I can give you the current signature if you need the location."

She telepathed a mental image of the camouflage mind to him in an instant, showing trust and loyalty on her side to gain his. Or maybe she was just very sure of her abilities. They'd see about that. Kaleb wasn't done testing yet. He inclined his head in dismissal and she was gone.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

The meeting with the security chief went quite well. Anatol Delenko did not seem so determined to probe her with every action and word towards her. He was built quite solid with broad shoulders and heavy muscles that were unusual for a Psy. He radiated a chill calm of Psy practicality. Something she was used to deal with. Most of the meeting consisted in an explanation of the security system, which involved of course mostly the gold standard in tech and procedure. If she was part of the security she had to know these things by heart as well as the blueprint of the main building and a few other business premises that belonged to the Councilor. All in all the system included nothing she didn't know from her training and had even one or two tiny gaps a well-trained Arrow like her could slip through. She contemplated keeping that knowledge to herself for a moment. Then she decided that showing some skill and reliability was more likely to be expected if this was another test and pointed out the gaps, when Delenko was through with the introduction.

"That would require excessive training, but yes, it could be done. I will discuss this with Mr. Krychek as soon as possible. Thank you for the hint." No surprise in his voice. But that didn't mean he'd known the security gaps before. However, he changed the subject a little too hastily to appear completely confident about what she had just told him.

"Now, to your responsibilities. Apart from your personal involvement in Mr. Krychek's private security you are also admonished to check the personal shields of the higher ranking, permanent staff members and counsel them if necessary."

That came as a surprise. She wouldn't have expected that kind of involvement, at least not so soon. But that also meant she neither would have to spend her entire time too close to this irritating man nor would she sit around with nothing to do, when the Councilor had no need of her.

"I have permission to check the shielding of the higher staff? That's a lot of trust. Is there no probation time before I am trusted with such a task?"

"No. You can start tomorrow, right after you meet the rest of the team. It was a direct order from Mr. Krychek."

Another test then she was sure. No one in his right mind would let a new employee this far inside their security matters. She had no problem with that. To manage her own natural talents she had in fact become a specialist on all sorts of shielding. She'd take this as another chance to show how she could be of use to Krychek, conveniently without killing people.

"Alright. Will I have regular working times then?" It hadn't seemed like it on her schedule so far.

"Usually the members of the security division are ready on call. You'll get your schedule once a week, but as the political situation is destabilizing that may change on a daily basis. I was given to understand there would be no problem with that since you're used to it from your former job."

The man obviously didn't know she was an Arrow. And he had no concept of how she'd worked so far. Since she had started active service in the Squad, she had been relatively free. She had her regular medical check-ups with Aden who knew about her unusual condition and abilities. So she didn't have to hide there. Apart from that she got her missions and was authorized to plan them on her own terms as long as the outcome was what was expected. She could go where and do whatever she considered necessary for her assignment or the _preservation of her functionality_ as they called her exceptional, emotional needs. The contact with the world of the feeling races was even desired in her case, because she was the only one in the Squad being able to deal so well with them. She understood them and could therefore deliver qualified information that the most Silent of the Psy had no other ways of obtaining.

"No it's not a problem. I just wanted to know. I'll meet you tomorrow then."

Leaving for her quarters again she thought this could become really hard. Now that she was to be integrated so thoroughly in a Psy designed working environment, it would be much harder to indulge in all those forbidden pleasures, she had worked in her schedule, when she was on her own. Especially lately she had gone further than necessary in her contact with the feeling races. She had often had assignments to spy on humans and their ease with emotion had just been too tempting. Now she'd pay the price for that indulgence: She'd miss the acquaintances she had made all over the world to ensure occasional emotional exchange and support. She would miss all the small pieces of beauty she had hidden in her safe places over time. And most of all she would miss nature, the one place where no one judged her, where she could be herself. Maybe she could request some time in the open for occasional survival training. But the thought did nothing against the feeling that she was caged again, like she had been in training. It was exactly what she had feared, when Aden had first proposed the position, but she had run out of options and there was one man she never wanted at her back again. A fear that was so old and deep she still hadn't gotten rid of it.

They had discussed if she couldn't just go dark but she had learned that she hadn't been as free as she thought. Most of her whereabouts and activities over the years had been monitored and documented in the Squad files, meaning that her worst enemy had had access to them and would probably find her before she got away. So it had been decided that she needed another protector outside the Squad. She didn't like the idea of being dependent again. But it was still better than defecting. Now that some powerful Psy were known to have successfully escaped the Net there was hope for her to succeed in it too, but that was something she couldn't do. The Net needed her and she owed to make up for the terrible things she'd done. She wouldn't run.

So she had agreed to her current placement, but now she found it hard to accept another cage. She had at least expected she would live somewhere more secluded. A futile hope. Of course a man like Kaleb Krychek would want full control of everyone in his service.

She'd get used to it. She always did. She just needed to pull her behavioral controls tighter and meditate longer to clear her mind.

* * *

**Secret personal files of the Arrow Squad**

Eva Milhaud:

* * *

27.11.2054:

Elimination of Eva Milhaud and Daniel Calve (target in Mission FF-7346) in a hospital in Cologne, Germany – illegitimate, biological child of Milhaud and Calve secured: a girl with cardinal potential, designation yet unknown, transferred to center for infants with Arrow potential – file closed


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Kaleb was sitting in his office, staying up late again and searching the darkest and most remote places in the Net for information about the one person in the Net he had not been able to pinpoint down for the last seven years. He had almost located her but then suddenly a few days ago the track had ended cold as if she had vanished again. Even the NetMind had been no help as to what had happened, although it had set him on the track in the first place.

Over seven years ago, when he was long bound to the darkness of the DarkMind in that uncanny, sinister way, the NetMind itself had come to him. It had only shown him one picture. But that had changed something fundamental in him. It was the mental image of a female Psy mind that was glowing in a warm gold so bright it should have shone throughout the Net like a sun. He had never seen something that was even moderately alike. It was everything Kaleb himself would never be: Good, gentle and purely compassionate; a being that would never harm a single creature. It was a mind so beautiful and pure in itself, that even in his Silence he couldn't refrain from marveling at it. When he'd asked who she was, he had only gotten a hint to find her but no clue how. But then – as if the neosentience wasn't sure the picture had made a big enough impression – it had requested that he _helped_ her, _saved _her. He had asked for more information. Why did she need his help? And why should he of all people be willing to do it? All he got back was the picture of seven pristine, bright stars that were slowly drenching her beautiful star in stains of blood and darkness. The enigmatic picture was frustrating. But it could mean only one thing: She was in the claws of the Council. Of course it would be them who caged and destroyed all the goodness they could find. He must know it. He had learned that the hard way. And he had already failed to protect more than one woman from the evil of one particular Councilor. But this one he would find and keep safe.

First he had consulted the one presence in the Net that gave him answers the NetMind never would. By those very few who knew the DarkMind existed at all, it was considered to be mute. But Kaleb knew better. The DarkMind had its own violent ways of screaming out to the Net, tainting it with sickness, madness and in the end death itself. But to him it had also spoken. It responded to pieces of data – mostly pictures Kaleb showed him – with twisted surges of emotion. He couldn't feel them himself but he had learned to read them through his connection with the neosentience: need and jealousy usually meant, in the picture was something he would probably want to have at hand for his purposes, while hate and loathing symbolized enemies to these purposes and fear was an indicator for threats he usually eliminated. This had gained him a lot of power over the years, effectively helping him along in his goal to control the Net itself and destroy the Council from within.

But when he had shown it the image of that extraordinary mind, something unusual had happened. For a moment the DarkMind had stilled completely, as if all the dark emotions stopped twisting inside of it, almost as if they were soothed. And then the black tendrils of the DarkMind had started to wrap around the image, devouring it completely and leaving behind a feeling of the deepest most savage need and longing. It wanted her – to find peace. Not the deceitful peace, that only froze the storm of raging emotions temporarily as Silence did, but the true peace and ease of an innocent mind.

And for the first time Kaleb hadn't only read the DarkMind's emotion but truly understood it. Even though he couldn't feel it, he knew that this sun-like mind had to be his, that he must possess her. If a mere picture of her could soothe the DarkMind, maybe she could save him and the Net from his own madness and darkness that, as he had reason to believe, would one day eat him up, probably shattering the Net itself in the process. She was the one being that could maybe give him back what had been taken from him in a windowless, soundproofed room so many years ago. So finding her had become the one purpose in his life, besides destroying the Council that had enslaved his race for too long and allowed the most baleful killers to go about their business freely.

Since then the DarkMind had often come to transmit that feeling of longing to him. But he couldn't give an answer to the obvious question. He didn't know where or who she was. The NetMind had handed him bits of data over time, enough to make him sure such a being really existed, but never enough to locate her.

When he noted that he had indulged too long in these thoughts – again – he tore himself away from the memory and returned to the task at hand. Checking the time he decided to make his way back through the Net to get some sleep. Tomorrow he had to find out more about another very interesting female, he intended to use on his way to ultimate power. Thinking of her, he decided to make a little side trip on his way back – to Alja Dardo's mind – and have a closer look at her shielding in the Net. It took him a while to find her in the huddle of ordinary minds even with the signature she had given him. It was truly amazing how plain she looked on the Net.

He wondered if it took much effort to keep that up all the time. Of course he had various skills to camouflage the brightness of his cardinal star in the Net too. But all of them required at least some amount of concentration. She really seemed to be highly disciplined beside her flawed Silence. He hadn't thought someone like her could master such control, knowing that his own Silence was essential to his reign over his abilities. Maybe he had been ignorant at that point so far. After all there were some high gradient Psy who had defected from the Net only recently and found shelter with the changeling packs in San Francisco. And they seemed to manage quite well without Silence. But that was no way for him. He would always stay Silent. He repeated those thoughts like a mantra fighting off the rising temptation.

He circled Alja's camouflaged mind once more looking for any signs that this was just a clever disguise, when something very much unexpected happened: She died.

* * *

Her mind had just dropped out of the Net. Or could she be defecting in the middle of his high security property? He found her mind in the physical world still in her quarters where she had been all the time before and teleported there without hesitation. During appearing in the intended spot he felt himself slide off something that felt vaguely like a body of water to his psychic senses and bumped into a chair in the middle of her bedroom.

At the impact of someone on her shields Alja's Arrow reflexes snapped awake at once. In a split second she had grabbed the blade she kept under her pillow and jumped at the intruder.

Kaleb had barely had time to realize she'd been in bed when he had all but stumbled into the room. Then she had moved with amazing speed. He caught the hand holding the deadly blade with a well-practiced movement and prepared for further attack but she already pulled back when she recognized him. He kept his grip on her wrist tight.

"Councilor!" she exclaimed, staring at him in surprise.

"What did you do?" Spoken more like an order than a question, but she did not understand immediately.

"What did _I_ do? What do _you_ do in my bedroom Councilor?" Even by Psy standards this was a major breach of privacy. What the hell was going on now? Her mind started racing.

"You just dropped out of the Net. Usually that means dying for a Psy. But you seem quite alive. So I would like to know, what you just did with your mind in the Net." He noticed that she was dressed almost like she had been in his office: Cargo pants and a long sleeved T-shirt. Only the jacket and combat boots were missing. Then he looked into her eyes. In the dim light of her room they looked even stranger: A night sky falling away endlessly, as if it was about to pull him in. Uneasiness crept up is spine. He shook off the thought at once.

Alja caught herself as quick as she'd been ready to attack. But it took a few seconds until coherent thought channeled through the mix of sleepiness and adrenaline and she understood. "I dropped out of the Net because I fell asleep. I thought that was in my file." She realized he still had a steel hold on her armed hand and knew she wasn't going to get away without serious effort. He had extensive martial training. And this was hopefully not the time and place he had intended for a sparring session.

What surprised her was that his touch felt so warm. After his stone cold appearance this afternoon she had pictured he would feel colder. A stupid emotional assumption, she scalded herself for. Pulling the hold on her behavior control tighter, she gave the explanation he obviously still waited for. "I drop out when I lose consciousness – like when I sleep. I can go for roughly three hours without the biofeedback. Then I wake and relink. The responsible M-Psy in my Squad believes it is also due to the extraracial genes but we don't know for sure."

"It seems you are even more extraordinary than I expected. Are there anymore talents I am not yet aware of?"

_Oh if you knew! _"Not that I recall Sir. And I don't know why this irregularity wasn't in my file. But I was also not aware that I'd be monitored so closely in the Net."

A complaint. He chose not to react to it but finally let go of her arm.

"I apologize for disrupting your sleep and your privacy, but maybe you should have mentioned this minor detail of your different disposition in our conversation this afternoon."

"Yes, I probably should have." It spoke for his extraordinary skills that he had managed to find her mind in the Net so quick at all – even with her current signature. It meant she would have to disguise much better if she ever wanted to hide anything from him. But it also meant that the decision of the Squad to place her here had been right. Kaleb Krychek was probably capable of protecting her from the one who might learn of her continued existence very soon and decide to end it at the first chance.

"We will talk about that exceptional quality of yours tomorrow. I have scheduled a meeting for eight. We will also talk about you bringing weapons into this building." With that he was gone the way he had come, but left the blade in her hand. She stared down at her arm, not at the blade but at the spot where he had touched her. It still tingled with the warmth of his touch and she discovered she liked it. Usually she was emotionally numb to bodily sensation. Excessive pain conditioning had made sure of that. Giving her an edge over most of her race – and taking something from her she could never replace.

But now she had reacted to his touch as if he had stroked her. He had held her wrist quite fast and for much longer than usual combat contact lasted. Maybe it was the length and intensity that enabled her to really feel, not just sense the touch. It still didn't explain why she had liked it. Confused she tried to get back to sleep. When that proved impossible she went to a state of meditation she had practiced well to relax her mind and replace some of the sleep she missed.

* * *

Kaleb teleported directly to his home in the outskirts of Moscow, but decided to go for a run before finally catching some sleep. He needed to think these new developments through as soon as possible. He stripped completely and put on only a pair of flowing black pants, before he teleported out again to a remote place where no one but some wild animals could see him. While his body was racing through the forested steppe with Tk accelerated speed, he tried to clear his thoughts.

There was something about Alja Dardo that was more than strange. Was she supposed to be a spy, a distraction or a trap? If so it didn't seem well planned. Everything about her just screamed _suspicious_. A Psy who could drop out of the Net for hours – he had never heard of it before. And then there were those exceptional shields that had even repelled him from teleporting in. What else did she hide inside them?

She seemed as tough as steel outwardly, but probably not very keen on practicing the more violent aspects of her profession. And she didn't like to be watched. Who would? But the woman better got used to being closely monitored. He liked to know everything about the individuals he allowed near him and he was sure as hell going to keep a very close eye on this one.

Beside his spiking interest in this mysterious woman – who seemed to produce more secrets by the hour – he sensed that _something_ on the edge of his awareness again, still unable to pinpoint down, what it was. But it was there, the knowledge of something dangerous just out of his reach. A rare thing. Such a lapse of control over the functions of his mind was not tolerable. He would file through his mind for it later. He sped up even more so he had to concentrate fully on avoiding the obstacles in his way and could relax his mind from the matter. The answers would only come to him if he kept it open. But he wasn't successful that night.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Ming LeBon was still filing through the data he had collected, while the Arrow Squad had been under his command. He had never shared the important details but he needed to know exactly if the elite soldiers had any knowledge that could endanger his power, now that they had changed their allegiance – especially when they had given it to a man like Kaleb. The powerful Tk had never been open with his ambitions, but Ming was sure it had only been a strategy to be able to operate better covered. He was about to discard the current file without closer attention, because it was older than twenty years and not likely to be of importance today. Then he detected a little irregularity and decided to follow it up just to be sure.

What he discovered upon closer examination snapped all his senses to high alert. No, it could not be. They couldn't have deceived him right under his nose! They had all been loyal at the time. He had just become their leader back then. And yet it seemed at least some in the Squad had done something unforgivable. He needed to find out more. And if his suspicions turned out to be true, he had more than one Arrow to hunt down.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

Alja took great care to be exactly on time the next morning. After last night's encounter she had no desire to do anything to appear strange in any more ways. The Councilor greeted her with perfect politeness and to her relief he came right to the point today.

"Before we start on the psychic plane, I'd like to have some more information about your unusual sleeping habits." He had contacted Aden about it minutes ago, so he could double check the information without giving them a chance to exchange via the Net and align what they wanted to tell him. As far as the field medic of the Arrows was to be trusted, he had verified what Alja had told him the night before but couldn't give him much more information. And he hadn't given him a reason, why the anomaly hadn't been mentioned in her file. He assumed the Arrows weren't done gathering proof for his loyalty. It was understandable under the current conditions in the Net. And it meant he had to be careful with Alja. It might as well be that she was a test of how far he was willing to go for the support of the elite assassin squad.

Her answer was prompt and given with the typical Psy accurateness.

"I usually sleep for two cycles of three hours per day. I compensate with meditation if I need more rest. I didn't drop out when I was a child. The ability only developed as I grew older. I suppose it is a higher shielding mechanism. But as I said, we don't know for sure." Another half-truth. She had first dropped out after an excessive use of her powers when she was four years old. It had saved her life at the time. When she grew older and came to understand the impact of her ability, she had become fearful of giving into unconsciousness as long as she was in the Net. She had often exhausted herself not being able to sleep for days until her nature had found that way around it. She wondered if it would one day stop when she felt safe. Something she wasn't likely to ever experience.

"What happens if you drop unconscious otherwise than sleeping? You could be drugged or knocked out and stay out for longer than three hours."

"I usually wake, because the lack of biofeedback gets uncomfortable. If I didn't, it would have the same effect as for any other Psy. I would probably die." It was inconvenient to let him in on the information, but if it distracted him from her more dangerous secrets she didn't mind if he knew. It would not be a great disadvantage. There were easier ways to kill her, if anyone ever got close enough to drug her or knock her out.

"Any more details on that? I don't want any more surprises."

_Well, I'll keep some surprises in reserve. Just in case I ever want you to turn up in my bedroom again. _She could suppress the words just before they got out. What the hell was the matter with her? It was not like he was going to understand a joke. But the urge to provoke him was almost irresistible. Another slip of her behavioral control. During her recent missions she definitely had allowed herself more freedom with the feeling races than was good for her.

"No. But in case you were wondering: you might have felt as if you touched a wall of liquid when you teleported in last night. I was told that's what it feels like when someone brushes my shields with Tk. And it was what awoke me." She threw the piece of intel in to show her willingness to cooperate. He seemed to be satisfied on that point after all.

"That's what I thought." He couldn't resist trying it out now. So he reached out to her shields very carefully with Tk, not to attack this time but to scan over them. It felt like touching a waterfall that was flowing in every direction at once. Soft but somehow impenetrable. "Do you feel every tangency?"

_Hell yes._ When she felt it, she almost shuddered. It felt like a caress to her senses. Impossible. She had never reacted emotionally to shield contact. She swallowed dryly before answering, not trusting her voice right now. "Yes. That's how I can distinguish what to let in when it is required." His touch lingered for seconds. For a moment his eyes seemed a little less remote. Then he broke the psychic contact, blinked and the stars in them were as distant as ever.

"And you always sleep fully dressed?" An abrupt turn in the conversation.

"I need to be ready on call at all times. I was given to understand that was part of the job." And she needed to be able to get away. She had learned it the hard way over and over. _Never let down your guard. Not when you eat, not when you're in the bathroom, not even when you sleep._ The words of her first instructor in the training facility still rang in her head. Marino Ghetty had been as cold as any other Arrow, but he had seen something in her she did not fully understand until she was much older. And he had ensured her survival the only way he knew: making her harder, stronger and faster than everyone else, although that had meant even less of a childhood than the others in Arrow training had. Even though he had taken so much from her, caused her pain most people never experienced, he had always cared for her safety. He had been the closest thing to family, she had and she was thankful for everything he'd done, because once she had understood, what she really was, she knew that he was right: If the wrong people ever caught so much as a rumor of her existence, she wouldn't last five minutes without her training. Wrong people, such as Kaleb Krychek probably.

His next words brought her back from the memories.

"Or are you concerned about the security of this building? You have also brought an interesting weapon without clearing it with security."

"I was trained never to enter unknown territory unarmed. You should be more worried, that I was able to get it into the building. And as I have pointed out to your security chief yesterday there are currently two ways to get access to this building without teleporting. Maybe I _should_ be concerned about your building security."

Very few people would have been so confident in his presence, Kaleb thought. As an Arrow she might be used to following orders, but she clearly had a good portion of her own will. That was not necessarily a problem, if he could find a way to direct that will.

"That was good work. I have already ordered to fix that."

"May I ask how?" Those gaps would be hard to cover without Arrow training.

"Yes, you're going to be informed about it with the rest of the security team anyway. I have subcontracted some able soldiers from BlackEdge – the local wolf pack – lately. They have excellent night vision, sense of hearing and smell – just what is needed to fully cover the spaces you pointed out. They will be worked in the security plans immediately."

"You're trusting changelings with the task? That seems an unusual risk."

"Unusual yes, risk maybe. But we live under unusual circumstances. And I am not the only Councilor relying on changeling support in some specific areas." Nikita Duncan and Anthony Kyriakus had worked together with the predatory changeling packs in California and it had paid well for them. "Will their emotionality be a problem for you? I don't want to switch one security risk for another. If you get trouble with your conditioning I can take care that you don't have to work too closely with them."

Of course it must be her flawed Silence if there was something to be concerned about. "There won't be a problem with the changelings. But I have another request. I usually don't advertise my cardinal status. Few people in the Squad know about it. But contrary to my blades my contacts didn't make it through the security scan. If possible I'd like to wear them whenever I'm working with someone from outside your inner circle of staff."

"Understood, you can conceal the eyes whenever you want. But will the lenses fool the changelings in the long run? You shouldn't underestimate how perceptive these creatures are."

That was something she wasn't likely to do. She had learned on first contact that the changelings somehow always knew she was different than others of her race, that she was not Silent. That was why she didn't like them too close, just like anyone else who threatened to uncover her secrets.

"I have special biomorphing lenses. They mimic the natural contraction of the iris under different light conditions. They cannot be distinguished from natural eyes other than by an iris scanner." After a short pause she added. "So can I keep the blade?" She hated to ask for it, but this was just too important. And she couldn't risk going against any more regulations without permission. She was too peculiar already.

"I understand your needs as a soldier and I want you to be fully functional as such. You can wear whatever weaponry you perceive suitable. But you will report anything that qualifies as weapon to Delenko _before_ you bring it to my property. Consider the other blades in your rooms cleared as well. I signed them in myself."

He had searched her quarters already although there couldn't have been much time since she left just about fifteen minutes ago. Obviously the term _privacy_ was not known around here. Her "Thank you, Sir" sounded a little relieved nonetheless. She needed her weapons to feel anything close to safe. And she began to think that her coming here had been a very stupid idea. She'd have nothing but trouble with that man. But she was also fascinated by him in a way she couldn't yet explain. No one had ever been able to imbalance her so easily and he made her want to try and do the same back to him.

* * *

Kaleb had learned two things so far: First, Alja's weapons were important enough to her, that she accepted to let it show. And second, she was concerned about her disguise in a way that went beyond the Arrow training. Her perfectly cool appearance made it easy to forget she wasn't Silent. But when he factored it into the equation he realized there was only one explanation for her behavior: She was afraid of something or someone. The question was why and who? He would find out. He always did.

"So, how does your shielding on the psychic plane work? Will you need any access to my shields?"

"No of course not. You wouldn't allow _that_, would you?" The provocative words were out before she could stop them. _You'll dig your own grave if you don't get a hold on that streak of yours. _She thought. But she couldn't help it. The man just made it so tempting to try and get him out of his shell of ice and stone.

"Probably not. But then, it would only be dangerous for _you_ to know what I have to hide." A threat – of course that would be his reaction. But it was something. "Why the physical contact then?"

"My shields are physically tied to myself. They spread along my biofeedback link into the Net. The link is the bridge between the body and the Net – between the physical and the psychic plane. When I have physical contact with another Psy I can align my own link with his and virtually wrap my shields around that link and the appended mind too. That way we appear as one mind and I stay invisible myself, while I can give you whatever appearance you choose."

"Appearance?"

Good. Another opportunity to bring her less suspicious skills to his attention. Without hesitation she rattled through the refined functions of her shields.

"Usually I would mimic your own appearance in the Net so the additional shields stay invisible, but I can also make you look like anyone else. I can simulate practically everything including a changeling mind. That doesn't work with their race, of course. They're not psychic and are relying on smell to identify others. But any Psy would take me for a human or a changeling if I wanted to. These qualities are only of interest out of the Net of course. Inside the Net I can look like any Psy mind of which I have an exact signature. How good the deception is depends on the complexity of the signature and how long I have to build up the fake. But I am positive, if I study yours for some time I could even fool the other Councilors."

Kaleb began to understand why the Arrows had kept someone with her abilities in spite of her flaws. She really was intriguing. There were endless possibilities what one could achieve with someone who could imitate the mind of a Councilor! Only, he would need to ensure that he was the one who controlled her. Therefore he needed to find out what she wanted and pose it as bait – or threaten her with what she feared. Something he'd done a thousand times before. And it was even easier with those who felt. They could be manipulated through their emotions.

"Then mimic my own mind first. We'll do a trial with Delenko to see how it works. If it's sufficient to deceive him, you stay for an in-Net meeting with some business associates of mine. Do you need anything else for preparation?"

"You need to specify where I can touch you. Any amount of skin that one of my hands fits on is fine. Just pick somewhere it doesn't disturb you too much." Most Psy were very uncomfortable with touch so she had made it a habit to leave them the choice of the location on the rare occasions that aspect of her talent was requested. He surprised her again.

"Will that be sufficient?" he asked, unbuttoning the upper half of his shirt and pulling the left sleeve off his shoulder thereby laying bare a good portion of well-defined pectorals and upper arm. That was an offer of rather intimate contact. She stared at the smooth, slightly tanned skin for a moment, thinking that she wouldn't mind at all to touch him there. Damn, another unacceptable reaction. She took care to answer more appropriately, than her impulsive response suggested.

"Of course, but your hand or lower arm would have been enough as well."

"I might need both my arms to handle the datapad or comm system, while we're in. So that way you are least likely to cause disturbance." Cool practicality in every word. Of course, it would not matter to him that the suggested area was considered a rather intimate space for skin to skin contact by the emotionally able species.

"Right. Will you need to get up too, or do I just stand behind you all the time?"

"You can also sit." This time he did not bother to get up to gather a chair. He moved it silently from the wall behind his own with Tk without even looking at it.

This seemed a nice enough job, Alja thought: Sitting behind a man with a hand on his shoulder, while her natural shields did most of the work. She only needed to connect to him and ensure that no one could sense her own presence, which was what she had done for years every time she surfed the Net. At least this was far better than any more killing. She had been good at it, as good as any Arrow but she always knew she wasn't made for it. Having a conscience and a disposition to feel what she did to her victims wasn't exactly what qualified her for that profession. Yet again Marino Ghetty's words echoed in her mind. _When you get an order you follow it. You don't ask questions. You don't hesitate – especially if it's a kill. _She had always obeyed, even though it had brought her close to insanity. But she didn't know how much more she could have taken. So even if the recent developments meant a higher threat to her own life, she was glad that her new position involved her in more defensive tasks.

Satisfied with the outlook, she settled behind the Councilor and laid her hand on the curve where his neck flowed into his shoulder. The same warmth she had felt the night before, met her palm now, the sensation intense given her numbed tactile senses. And that skin with the color of desert sand – it was so alluring to stroke along the line of his shoulder. _Get a grip on yourself, Alja! _

She forced herself to hold her hand rock still and concentrated on the task at hand. "I'll start now. It may take a short while for me to adjust the first time. Say if you experience any disturbance." She searched for the column of light and energy that was the vital link of every Psy to the Net. When she found it, she slowly laid hers parallel to it and let her shields flare out. They flowed around his mind like a thin layer of water mirroring the mind inside and reflecting it to the surface, effectively staying invisible that way. Then she found herself inside the confined space of her outer shields with a mind that was as pristine and chill as an ice crystal.

He was very cold even for someone Silent. Being so close to him soon started to feel very uncomfortable. So she retracted her psychic senses and tried to ignore the absolute lack of life he all but radiated into the Net. She was used to work with the most Silent Psy. But inexplicably with him it disturbed her. It was also what constantly provoked her to get some motion out of that icy star. She didn't act on the impulse this time. She'd done enough damage already. Provoking him any further would just get her into trouble.

To her relief the trial session with Delenko went perfectly. Kaleb just contacted him telepathically and asked for some random information on security matters. At one point the security chief even asked if Kaleb had talked to her already.

_No, I expect her in a few minutes to check my own shielding. I want you to do some quick test attacks just to be sure I'm prepared._ The Councilor lied without hesitation.

_If you think that is necessary. But I don't think I'll find any weak point_s.

_Just do it._

The telepathic attacks were strong and refined. She'd expected nothing else from someone who was allowed to work for the most dangerous Psy in the Net. But nothing she couldn't deal with or even threatened the camouflage.

_As I said. Your shielding is impenetrable, just as always. _Delenko stated after a few minutes.

_Are you sure there are no irregularities? It might not show as weakness but in the way my shielding reacts._

_No not at all. They react completely normal, just like –_ a startled pause. _She is with you right now, isn't she?_

_Correct. How did you notice?_

_I didn't at all. I just guessed, because you have no need to test your shielding, Sir. _After another short Pause he added. _She's truly remarkable. I can see none of her additions to your shields. Is she in the Net at all?_

Alja just couldn't resist. _Yes, she is and she can listen to our conversation. _She replied in a perfect imitation of Kaleb's telepathic voice. She knew she had really shocked him when he quickly intervened before she could go on.

_And yes, I only wanted to know if you can sense her. That would be all for now. _

Hell, she was dangerous. No wonder he repeatedly sensed a threat coming from her in the periphery of his awareness. Although he didn't believe in such a thing as instinct, he apparently had a subconscious sense for danger.

"How come the Council doesn't know of someone with your skillset?" he asked the moment they returned to the physical plane.

"No one knows I can do what I just showed you." She'd kept it to herself, because it was another quality that would make her too dangerous in the eyes of most Psy who wanted to maintain their power. But another stupid urge to impress the one in front of her had made her give up one more of her well-kept secrets.

"Then why let me know?"

"You've been very tolerant with my anomalies so far. And I pay my debts as soon as I can." Loyalty, the trademark of the Arrows. It was logical enough.

A part of Kaleb's mind already started racing through the options, this new ability of his personal Arrow opened up to him, while he prepared her for the telepathic business meeting with the matriarch of the Liu group. So he didn't realize that the warning signs of something off, something wrong in the back of his mind just grew a fraction stronger. And something long dead, something that was hidden deep inside his chest, under layer upon layer of ice and rock, sparked to life.

* * *

To Alja the business meeting she attended was comparably disinteresting. No one ever noticed her presence and she had already known most of the info that passed between the two parties. So she let her gaze wander on the physical plane. The man beside her was handling the comm system parallel to the conversation on the psychic plane seemingly without effort. She could feel his attention shift along the link sometimes, but he was so fast it really seemed as if his mind was fully present in both places at the same time.

She could sense the slight movement of firm shoulder muscles right under her palm. Strong, male hands were moving almost elegantly over the touchscreen while he verified financial data on the internet. He definitely knew what he was doing with those hands and she wondered whether they'd feel soft or a little rough on her skin. Every move, everything about him seemed efficient and controlled. Even his face was nearly motionless, fully focused. His hair was the darkest shade of brown. He wore it in a business man's cut, combed back neatly out of his face. She wondered if it would look tousled when he woke up in the morning, tried to imagine his face with a few longer strands of it falling onto his forehead. Only when she started considering how it would feel to trace the smooth lines of his strikingly attractive profile with her fingers, she caught herself. Her mind had wandered off again. That was inacceptable. She was Psy after all and her mind a tool she usually handled just as efficiently as any other of her race. She made a mental note to keep away from any indulgences that brought her closer to the erratic world of emotion: No human contact, no music, none of her hidden treasures and only nutrition bars for food until she had these annoying impulses contained. She couldn't afford any slips in her self-control. Not in her current situation. So she was glad when the meeting was finally over and lifted her hand off of him the moment they had both left the psychic plane.

"That went very well. I'm sure your talents can be very useful to me in the future," he stated at once.

She'd passed another test, gotten another step close to being the instrument of a cold and ruthless Councilor. No, she'd been that all her life. A step closer towards protection, safety – that was the way she should see it. But why did it feel like another trap? "I am glad you approve. Did the touch bother you?"

He hadn't really noticed her as long as she'd shielded him but now he found it took a little effort to get used to her absence again. As if he had to compensate for something that was missing. At her question he wondered if he had accidentally let it show. "No I am used to physical contact due to the combat training. And my conditioning is by far not that fragile. But doesn't it bother _you_? You should be more sensitive if you are prone to emotion."

"No it's only minimal contact after all. I barely feel it." _Usually._ And she still had no idea why she reacted so differently with him.

"You seem to have excellent strategies for coping."

She'd about had it with him thinking she needed to constantly '_cope_' with her flaw to not turn into an uncontrolled heap of emotion. So her response came out a little to earnest.

"No, it's not really a strategy. It's a byproduct of the martial conditioning process: They tried to put me under dissonance of course." Everyone with martial potential got a severe form of pain conditioning to control their powers. "But it didn't stick. So they tried harder and harder until they finally gave up. But at that point I was irreversibly numbed to physical stimuli." Her brain had tried to shut off the pain stimulation, which had been futile because dissonance was designed to start in the brain itself.

"You mean your ability for perception is gone?"

"No not exactly. I know whether it is cold or warm, whether there is pressure on my skin or tissue hurt. I can even perceive pain to some degree. But it is no longer a real sensation. My perception is no longer connected to any emotional reaction. I had to train to consciously react accordingly to any stimulation. It works well now but it took some time. I think that's why they stopped trying to install what they did to me as an addition to the usual pain conditioning: Arrows need the ability to withstand pain, but they also need their senses together."

Was there any atrocity, his race hadn't yet tried in the pursuit of Silence? No wonder the woman stood her ground so well. Even though she felt, there probably wasn't much left she was afraid of, certainly not pain. Which made him wonder again what it was, she was trying to hide from so obsessively then. That had to be the key to control her. But as long as he didn't know what it was he'd try playing nice.

"If there is anything you need to train your sensitivity further let me know. I'll see what I can do."

A modest "Thank you, Sir" was all the reaction he got.

Suddenly he wasn't sure whether he had only offered it as bait for her trust. There was something else. The tingling of danger in the back of his mind again. But it might also be the strain of the last days. He hadn't slept much, surfing the Net most nights, preparing to seize control of a Net that was dying under his hands.


	8. Chapter 8

**Journal of CRPA, Issue 3, September 1974**

**Why the Silence Protocol will not work**

Dr. Aldwin Maykind

**Synopsis**

As commonly known, scientists have long sought a way to limit the high – and steadily rising – rates of mental diseases in the Psy population. Now we are told that the long desired cure has been found. As a member of the Cross Racial Psychiatric Association (CRPA) the author has been among the very few to be introduced to the details of the so called Silence Study Program (SSP), a scientifically designed method to assess the applicability of the Silence Protocol that was introduced by the Adelaja family, who have taken the risk to test it on their own children. Basically the new program elaborates the first that has been introduced by the Mercury Group six years ago and already proven to be a failure.

The results of the new program are gravely disappointing, as it works with both ethically and scientifically questionable methods. The treatment mainly contains making the recipient afraid of his emotions on the most basic level. In psychiatry we have a word for what the so called conditioning process does: Traumatization. And it is open to discussion if the resulting lack of affect really has any features of classical conditioning, or is just the result of the severe traumatic pressure that is applied, and therefore just a symptom of a posttraumatic stress disorder. In any case the Protocol cannot be stable for a longer period, because any form of life will always strive to heal itself and adapt even under the most adverse conditions.

To achieve even moderate stability one would have to maintain a constant severe threat to every individual and therefore ongoing traumatic circumstances. And even then the PsyNet itself will probably start healing the population or may otherwise be severely damaged.

It seems moot to point out that the systematic, constant traumatization of the whole population can hardly be an option to counteract mental illness, apart from the obvious ethical considerations that are to be taken into account and are contemplated by M. Miller, PhD in the ethics section of this issue.

* * *

**Chapter 8**

When Alja entered the small office she'd been assigned for her work, she looked forward to counsel the staff on their shielding. She could do something she was really good at and she could help people. The fact that this was what she had always wished for, could almost make her forget that she paid for her new employment with a big, bad and very unsettling Councilor at her back.

The downside of the task hit her when she started on the first staff members. She'd thought the next tests would at least be a little more ingenious after the skill she'd just shown. But the bugs in their shielding were so obvious it was insulting.

She removed them all with short explanations, only explaining more elaborately if she thought there the gap or mistake in the shielding had any chance to be genuine. And she found enough to gain her a little respect among the other employees especially on her own team. Which was good, because it meant no one picked on her or tried to initiate any power games and, as her species was not exactly sociable, they didn't bother her with free time activities either. So the next few days went relatively quiet. She also didn't get in contact with the changelings and wondered if that was on purpose.

However it helped her calm down a little to have a constant occupation and not too much contact to the man that threatened to crack her control whenever he got close to her.

* * *

The next time she encountered him was several days later on a meeting with the security team. She was surprised again that she'd been invited, when she saw only Delenko and three other members of her team in the small conference room, all of them Psy who had served loyally for several years. Other than them only Silver Mercant, who seemed to be the Councilors right hand, was there. So Alja seated herself as far as possible from the head of the table and tried to keep a low profile. She couldn't risk letting her provocative impulses show in the presence of others, sure the Councilor wouldn't react as tolerant as he had so far to her slips in respect.

They were all handed a set of different emergency plans and the guards got new alternating times for their shifts that ensured the whole system stayed unpredictable. She learned that security had been upped after a new set of attacks by Pure Psy on organizations and companies who were suspected to be tolerant about flawed Silence. The fanatic pro-Silence movement had suffered a heavy blow, when they'd tried to attack a changeling pack in North America but some of them remained and still operated form the shadows.

Now Kaleb was preparing for an open war. "I haven't officially positioned myself to the subject of Silence yet, but since Pure Psy has gone underground and has started a guerilla war, they have become somewhat unpredictable in their choice of targets. So we need to be prepared for possible attacks." And Kaleb had after all formed an alliance with Nikita Duncan, who had worked very closely with the changeling packs that hosted the only known defectors from the Net. Her daughter Sascha Duncan among them.

"So isn't it risky to start working with the changelings just now?" The woman who posed the question was Anastasia Velon, the head of security tech. She had already been criticiting the involvement of the wolves, when they had first been informed about it.

"As I do not expect to be able to keep out of the war forever, it is still safer to have their abilities at hand." His tone should have made it clear the statement was not to be discussed further.

"Reasonable. But will they go as far as to fight in our war? I can see no reason for them to involve themselves in our conflicts." Delenko. Obviously all of the attenders had earned the right to question the decisions of the Councilor at least at some level.

"We have a specialist in that field with us today. Alja Dardo has worked with the emotional species before several times. What do you say?"

So that was why she was here. Her answer was prompt and exactly to the point. "The other races will keep out of the conflict as far as possible. They'll just watch us weaken ourselves in our war. But the stronger, predatory changeling packs – such as BlackEdge – might as well see a chance to gain power by allying with the most promising parties. And the gain can be mutual, as we have seen in California."

"That doesn't sound very emotional." The chief guard, a tall man named Bernhard Hanser. He was built almost as broad as Delenko. It was striking that Kaleb Krychek apparently made his choice of personnel not only based on their psychic abilities. A strategy he was likely to profit from under the current circumstances.

"You forget that they're not exclusively driven by emotion. They're predators too and think as such. We shouldn't make the same mistake like so many of us and underestimate them." If she had learned one thing about changelings, it was that they weren't the stupid animals so many of her race believed them to be.

"A mistake Pure Psy has made not too long ago." Silvers cutting voice.

"You're talking of the incident with SnowDancer in California." Cylan Say – the weapons specialist had been quiet to that point. But the recent defeat of a skilled Psy organization by primarily changeling opponents seemed to cause some uneasiness in all of them.

"Yes. Although I think Pure Psy mainly underestimated the degree of cooperation between the changelings and the Psy in the area. Anyway, their actions were precipitate and irrational."

Which was exactly what made them so dangerous, Alja thought. Although she had sworn not to risk dropping another brick, she needed to speak on that point. "Pure Psy is fanatic. And fanaticism isn't rational, not even under Silence. They're digging their own graves using these terror strategies. They're trying to scare people into remaining Silent. A contradiction in itself: Fear is an emotion and it will only lead to a faster demise of the Protocol." A very violent one. And she could do nothing about it. Not yet. She needed so be stable and before all else feel safe to do what she was made for. If she ever found a way.

Kaleb remembered that he'd read something similar some time ago. Researching something else in the vast archives of the Net he had come across an article from the early days of the Protocol, when there was still controversy about Silence. He was among the very few persons in the Net who had gotten access to such documents at all. And even he had only found a synopsis. The full article had probably been destroyed in the early attempts to stifle all criticism towards the implementation of Silence. His further research had only unearthed that – like so many of the scientists opposed to the Protocol – the author had found an untimely death. He made a mental note to look it up again.

It was Velon who spoke next. "But the casualties would be severe at this point. We're not prepared to give up Silence yet." She sounded almost concerned.

"_Yet…_ Are you advocating the fall of Silence?" Hanser.

"No I'm advocating to start preparing for its fall, because it might happen whether we want it or not." A brave statement. Alja was glad she didn't have to be the one who made it. It was uncomfortable enough finding herself neck deep into a political discussion with the security committee of a Councilor. She didn't need any more _fucking_ attention.

Finally the head of the table joined the discussion. He had been watching them silently during the last few minutes undoubtedly using the hot button issue to evaluate all of them.

"Velon is right. It might no longer be a question whether we favor the demise of the Protocol or not. We need to be prepared for all eventualities, including the devastation of a failing Silence and full blown war conditions." She noted that he still hadn't expressed his personal opinion on the subject and was sure he did it on purpose. Not even his closest advisors knew for certain whether he favored the preservation of Silence or not. A clever strategy.

After that the discussion turned quickly to more technical issues again. The result was a set of preparations for severe destabilization of the political and economic situation. Alja only got more detailed instructions to train her colleagues in shielding techniques and also check some of Kaleb's armed forces. That left her with a little time to observe the assembled herself, while they were reviewing issues she wasn't directly involved with. Everyone in the room seemed to be a perfect Psy. Skilled, intelligent, Silent. Only Kaleb was set apart by the fact that he was ten times colder and indefinitely more powerful than anyone else.

_And still you could make all of them fall with a single flick of your power._

The comment came from a part of her she successfully suppressed most of the time. The tempting voice of cold hate and contempt hadn't spoken to her in quite a while. It was a sign of how fragile her own mental and moral stability had become during years and years of acting against her nature. Being so close to a part of the power structure that forced her to do so had apparently triggered it again. She tried to ignore it – as always.

Her mind took the opportunity to wander right in the next undesired direction: To the very attractive male who was leading this meeting. She had worked hard on her behavioral control over the last few days trying to stifle these inexplicable emotional impulses. In the end she had even fooled herself that she had succeeded.

It took only minutes in the presence of the Councilor to prove her wrong. When she looked at him all she wanted to do was touch, stroke along the even angles of his face, feel the texture of his skin and that rich, dark hair under her fingers. Thinking of what he would feel like alone caused a strange hot, sensation to unfold in her body. And there was something even deeper, something that drew her to him in a way nothing else in another human being ever had. She couldn't even explain what it was. It was just a feeling of something beneath his darkness and coldness that made him seem human despite all the ice and stone he had wrapped around himself. A perception not many people were likely to share.

But she had to be honest with herself. There was no denying it any longer: She was attracted to Kaleb Krychek – probably the last man in existence she should face with any emotion but a healthy dose of self-preservative fear.

This was impossible. Of course she had felt attracted to other men before – not being Silent and constantly in contact with the other races had brought on all kinds of sensual temptations Psy usually never faced. There had been some human acquaintances she barely knew, that she'd found appealing or attractive. But never Psy. And she had rarely been around the humans long enough to develop real attachment. Of course, that would have been impossible for an Arrow who was supposed to be one of the most Silent. And as she had learned from her special friend, it was what had killed her mother after all.

But Alja had been curious enough to try for more intimate contact once. All in all it had been awkward and even a little disgusting. She knew that was not the way it was supposed to be. And that wasn't the fault of the very sensitive human man she'd followed home one night after she had gone out to seek her so called human contact. It felt completely wrong, because her body didn't react to the intimate contact, to the touch. At least not enough to give her the pleasure she knew it gave other human women. She had felt just enough to make her realize just how much she'd lost through the dissonance conditioning. After that she had refused any form of contact that went beyond a casual talk, especially physical contact.

And now Kaleb Krychek of all people made her want to try again.


	9. Chapter 9

**Personal files of the Center for Infants with Arrow Potential**

Espérance Milhaud:

* * *

Date of Birth: 27.11.2054

Facility: CIAP Lyon (France)

Date of entry: 28.11.2054

Form of contract: None, biological parents deceased

Possible designations and Gradient measurement:

-cardinal potential

-genetic evidence of strong telepathy

-exceptional, natural shields

* * *

10.05.2058: inspection by Ming LeBon (lieutenant colonel of the Arrow Squad) – potential rated fatal – immediate termination ordered – termination executed by Marino Ghetty (Head of CIAP) – file closed

* * *

**Chapter 9**

The Ghost was floating through the Net quietly and unseen as always. He was the biggest thorn in the Council's side, a rebel in their own ranks, sabotaging and manipulating politics from within the Net itself. No one inside the Net knew his true identity, no one could stop him from destabilizing the rule of the Council. But today he was neither looking for information nor feeding rebellious rumors into the Net. He was trying to stop the rot that had befallen the Net from spreading further. The dead areas were growing with accelerated speed lately. He let himself drift along the verge of a wide dark field that he had patched up just the other day. The darkness was already seeping through the psychic walls he had built around it. He knew they wouldn't hold it long. Psychic constructions needed the Net itself, its texture, to hold on. If that texture failed, the power just dissipated into the void. There was only one way left to fix this. And he was the only one he knew who had the necessary skillset to do it.

Most Psy thought the Net was a purely telepathic entity. But the fabric it consisted of was a unique mixture of matter and mind that no usual psychic power could influence. To touch or even change it, one needed enormous strength and the ability to fuse both telepathic and telekinetic energy. That had always been easy for him. He could influence the mind in the same way he influenced matter. To him telepathy and telekinesis were simply two varieties of the same power.

He started working on the infected space. Carefully severing it from the last threads at the rim that were intact, he cut entire dead area out of the Net completely. It disintegrated fast the moment it was no longer nourished by the healthy fabric.

Now came the hard part: reconnecting the open edges he had left required more power than he had initially calculated. The Net seemed to get weaker, less able to seal itself shut. Even his vast strength wouldn't last for long.

He kept on working for hours, but with the growing strain on his powers he felt his resistance to the darkness that lurked around him fading. The more he got in contact with the diseased areas of the Net, the closer the rot got to his own mind. He took a short break to check the cage of conditioning in his mind for cracks. It wasn't failing yet. So far it was neither letting the madness he'd trapped inside it out, nor was it allowing the darkness from the Net inside. Only when he had finished closing the wound in the Net that was the life of his race, he fed the last bit of energy to his mental vault to stifle every impulse that might arise from its core. He was forcing his Silence to freeze even deeper than usual.

He wouldn't be able to do more tonight. So he returned to his body to get some rest. When he opened his eyes to the physical world it seemed strangely unreal, as if he couldn't perceive it fully. It was a condition he already knew well. Whenever he tightened his hold on Silence that hard, it felt a little like he was losing the connection to his body, to his senses, as if he was dying in small portions. But there was no way around it. It was the price he had to pay for his sanity.

When he was done he replayed the most dangerous memory once to make sure it caused no emotional reaction before he filed it away in the depths of his mind again.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

He was sixteen years old and already Silent for more than a decade. Today another special lesson with his teacher was due. The knowledge that what had happened in those lessons was wrong, was evil, came not from compassion or conscience. He did no longer have them at the time. It just existed on a level that went beyond emotion, beyond the reach of Silence. It rested in the very core of his being. And the more he was aware of it the harder it pulled on his control. The only way to survive at all had been to shut off all the emotions of fear, anger, disgust and even pity for the women. He had become perfect in it over the years, absolutely Silent at an age that was considered to be too young for the Protocol to stick permanently and resulting in unparalleled control over his abilities.

Still he knew that this was wrong and it was leading him down a path from which there was no return. He had sworn never to become what Santano Enrique had become. Maybe it was the one thing that was left of the boy he had been, when he first fell into the claws of the sociopathic Councilor.

And now there would be only one more. He'd have to watch only one more girl die and then he'd be free. He'd make it through this and one day he'd find a way to bring the man down.

"So Kaleb, this is your last lesson. It won't be like the others. Take this one as your final exam. You will get the chance to do the real work at last." Santano's voice was mockingly solemn while he pointed at the shaking, frightened girl that was tied to the sterile hospital bed at the opposite wall, obviously too scared to make any sound. She was a changeling, one of the Councilors favorite species for his experiments. "You may have noticed I tried not to damage her too bad during the last week. I did it so you can do some experimenting of your own today. She's a Swan, a very interesting species – and not as strong-spirited as the bears. Nevertheless, don't be as hesitant as that one time." The last words were accompanied by a short look at Kaleb's right forearm. As if it was necessary to remind him of the event that had gotten him the burn scar.

Kaleb only answered with a nod.

"She's all yours now. I'll leave you alone for a while. Let's say I'll be back in five hours and see how you're doing. Unfortunately we haven't got much more time today. But if you need a little more just 'path me. I don't want to hurry you."

With that he teleported out leaving Kaleb alone with a fragile looking girl that was trembling with fear. The moment Santano had left the scene, she started crying and begging him to let her go. Obviously he was by far not as scary as the older man. This was worse than he had imagined. But he should have known better. The psychopathic Councilor wasn't going to let him out of this until he was just as evil as himself.

He needed to find a way out of this. He needed to satisfy Santano Enrique to be able to get away from him at last. But to do as he asked would be one step too far down that road of darkness he had led him on.

It wasn't as hard as it had once been to suppress the shock and any emotional reaction to this new turn of events. Still he found it hard to think clear with the pleading, whimpering girl in the room but he didn't dare to leave. He was sure the Councilor couldn't monitor him telepathically without his detection. But he might know when he left the room. So he did the one thing that would silence her without too much cruelty. He broke into her mind with careful control. It wouldn't hurt her. Her shields had been broken days ago, her innermost secrets laid open. But he wasn't looking for those. Instead he filed through her mind for every memory she had that would qualify as pleasant. Then he focused a part of his mind on letting her relive every single one of them, while he was thinking frantically how he could evade becoming a murderer like the man who had been his trainer for almost all his life. There must be a solution.

He found none.

When the five hours were drawing to a close, he still had not a single idea, and worse he hadn't done the slightest harm to his supposed victim. He telepathed to Santano that he was absorbed in an interesting experiment, but needed more quiet and time to finish it.

_Alright you have two more hours. Unfortunately I can give you no more today, but I am sure we will find another subject you can take more time with._

For another half hour he played through every scenario he could think of again and again. But Santano would know all his tricks. He had taught them to him after all. One day he would be far stronger than his trainer, but right now he lacked the experience and resources to openly oppose him. Worse, if the sociopath ever learned Kaleb was not his perfect '_creature_', a mirror of his own evil mind, he probably wouldn't last long. For a Councilor there were always ways to get rid of people, he perceived to be a liability or even a threat. And it would be too late if he didn't act soon.

So he picked one more happy moment out of the girls head and played it through her mind. Then he retracted the telepathic influence for a moment, although he couldn't say why he pulled her out of the blissful state he'd kept her in so far. There was just this need to talk to her, to explain, to apologize. But she wouldn't listen.

"Please! Don't kill me!" A hopeless whimper. "I know you are not like that other man. You can let me go and I promise I won't tell…" He tuned her out. There was nothing he could do for her.

"I don't have a choice." His voice was flat and toneless.

Then he applied a well-dosed whip of Tk and snapped her neck. She was dead before the pain could reach her consciousness. At least that he had spared her. But the picture of her eyes, when the life left them burned into his mind.

He would never forget that moment. It had changed something deep inside of him forever. Now there was nothing good left in him. He had become the creature his teacher always wanted him to be. He could already hear the monster whisper inside his head, drinking in the silence of her death. But it was trapped, not only behind the icicle bars of Silence but in a vault he'd started to build when he was a child, when he'd first heard that gruesome little rhyme reverberate inside his skull.

_Stop the blood. Stop the heart._

_Or just tear them apart._

_Make them… _

He silenced it using the well-trained control over his mental functions and focused on the task at hand with cold expedience.

He took most of the remaining time to telekinetically break every bone in the girls body exactly in half. He had learned that accurateness was something that was required of a proper serial killer. While he did it, he kept pushing at her heart too to pump the blood through her veins so there would be enough bruising to make it look as if he'd caused the injuries, while she was still alive. The hormonal response in her brain would be wrong, but that was a risk he could take, if the body looked properly mistreated otherwise.

He was ready fifteen minutes early, so he checked the whole scene for signs that would betray he hadn't done exactly what was expected from him. When he found none, he telepathed to Santano again.

_I'm done. You can check my work._

The next moment the Councilor stood next to him in the room, taking in the picture of the corpse on the bed.

"No blood –." He raised an eyebrow and stepped closer examining the broken body. Even fully Silent, Kaleb had to force himself not to look away as the other man twisted and pulled at her broken limbs as if she'd never been a sentient being. "Ah I see… This is very good. You have an interesting style." Santano Enrique was content. His protégé had turned out just fine. He was his creation. A truly Silent Psy. Free from all the conventions and morals that still had influence on some of his race. Free from conscience. "I can provide you with another soon if you like."

"I appreciate the offer, but I think my next one won't be a changeling. I will try something different." Very much so. His next kill would not be an innocent. He'd bring down every single one who supported a system that allowed killers like Santano Enrique to roam freely. And one day he'd get to the sociopathic Councilor himself. This would be his reason for living. There was no other justification left for his continuing existence.

"Alright, get rid of her in a decent way. I will see you in the regular training." And with that he was gone again and Kaleb was alone with the dead swan girl once more.

He couldn't logically explain what he did next. He needed something to remind him of what he had become today and what he needed to do as a consequence. So he stepped closer to carefully remove the necklace she wore. The pendant was a simple perfect platinum star. He dropped it into his pants pocket.

Then he teleported the dead body right inside the closest garbage incinerator.

He was supposed to leave her corpse somewhere close to her family. But he had gone far enough tonight. He'd say that he suspected Santano to have left DNA traces during his inspection. A perfect justification that underlined his loyalty to his teacher. He took one last look at the now empty scene before he teleported back to his room in the facility where he had his regular training. There he lay down on the simple gray covers of his bed and stared at the ceiling for hours.

He wouldn't have killed her had he felt. But that would have been illogical and it wouldn't have mattered either. Santano Enrique would have done it the moment he found out his student – his long term experiment – had failed. Only the other man would have ensured she suffered as much as possible. And Kaleb's punishment would have been severe, probably cutting him off any possible chance to ever escape the hands of the sociopath.

The logic didn't help. Killing her had been wrong. Logical, but wrong – just like Silence. But he found out different that same night: Yes, Silence was probably wrong for his entire race – except for monsters like him.

* * *

Kaleb played the small platinum charm through his fingers now. It was no longer only a reminder of the innocent girl that had lost her life at his hands. With the time it had become a symbol of everything that mattered in his life: The cold quest for revenge for the other innocent women he had watched die, the need to bring down the Council to free his race, as well as the crack in his sanity that could only be sealed by the everlasting chill of Silence.

And by a sick twist of his mind it had also fused with the picture of that sun-like mind he had been searching for every day for over seven years. He had often wondered what _She_ would look like. But he had never known anyone who had any of the goodness he'd seen in _Her_ golden star. No one except the innocent girl he'd killed. And as if to torture him further his psyche had decided to give _Her_ the face of that girl. The two women had become one symbol of the last scrap of humanity he held on to, the last thing worth protecting. He had failed one. He wouldn't fail the other. He would do whatever it took to find _Her_.

But not now. He was completely worn out and as drained of power as a cardinal could possibly get. He needed sleep and nutrition and – maybe there was something else he could do…


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

Alja had gone to the gym for a late workout. Everyone else in the accommodation unit was asleep for hours, getting their scheduled recreation. But she had been unable to sleep. Since she could no longer fool herself about the feelings Kaleb had awakened in her, it was close to impossible to get her thoughts off of him. How could one of the coldest men in the world make her feel more alive than she had ever before? Avoiding emotional stimuli was not working at all. The more she deprived herself of them the harder she felt the impact of those new impulses.

Now she tried to calm herself and empty her mind with a series of advanced yoga positions, stretching and contorting her body to the limits of anatomy. That had always been easier for her than the brute force of the martial arts. The movements came far more natural to her. Perfecting the alignment of her body to the complex postures was a meditative task, which had never failed to calm her before. But just when she had settled fully into her practice, she felt the presence of another mind approaching. For a moment she was annoyed. Just when she'd gotten rid of him in her mind for a few minutes, he decided to come by and remind her in person of her idiotic attraction.

All her resentment vanished when she took a glance at him. He looked exhausted. More than that: His face wasn't only cold tonight. It was empty – too empty, even for the Silent. It seemed there was a profound darkness showing through the features that were usually cold stone.

Something was wrong.

All her senses went to high alert and she immediately dropped out of the difficult arm balance position she had been practicing.

"Councilor! Is there an emergency?" she asked taking a few steps towards him, while she kept the cool Psy façade up outwardly.

"'Councilor'" he echoed. "The Council has broken apart. You know the title is no longer accurate. Why are you still using it?"

His eyes were so distant, she wasn't sure his mind was fully in the room. His strange response was fueling that suspicion further. Not knowing what she dealt with she answered diplomatically.

"You are still one of our leaders, one of those who stabilize the Net. That isn't changed by the political conditions. So I think a title that acknowledges the task you perform is still suitable."

_Stabilize the Net_. Could she know that this was exactly what he had been trying to do just before he met her? Why had he come here at all? After he had returned to the physical world, drained to a critical level, he should have gone home directly not letting anyone see him in this state. Instead he had sought out her of all people, following a strange impulse to find out more about her.

"Thank you for your respect of my position, but it is unnecessary. You can go with Kaleb if you like."

What the hell was up with him?

He took a few steps further into the room, his eyes skating around as if he was looking for something.

"Whatever you wish, Sir. Is everything alright? You're showing signs of strain." A very technical assessment of his condition, hinting carefully that his behavior that was not acceptable in the usual Psy etiquette.

"I haven't slept in a while. I will take care of it soon."

But she knew it wasn't only the lack of sleep, he must have used his powers excessively tonight. And still those eerily empty eyes looked at her, or more right through her. Slowly she reached out with her psychic senses and felt – nothing – no, less than nothing: He was so cold it burned. It was as if he had locked his very self away behind a mask of ice and stone.

And suddenly she was filled with that inherent need that she had stifled for so long: A need to help, to heal. It was useless, even distracting until the day she could fully pursue it. But now it had awakened in spite of all her careful control – because of the man in front of her. It was compulsive. So she gave into it. She was very careful to just let a tiny trickle of her powers flow through him – just enough to compensate the emptiness she had perceived in him. She couldn't dare to do more. It would be as dangerous as unwanted.

"Then what can I do for you?" she asked.

Kaleb realized he was acting out of character. But he could explain that away later. He just _knew_ she wasn't dangerous right now. On the contrary, some of the fog in his head already seemed to lift, his senses working better now that he was no longer alone. He seemed to recover faster in her presence. Maybe it was only logical to talk to her. She was his shield specialist after all. She could probably give him advice about shielding the Net from the infectious parts in it. "Do you know about the problems in the structure of the Net?"

Was this another test? Or had he really come for her advice? Playing for a little time to think about how to react to this, she went back to the mat she'd been practicing on to pick up her towel. When she turned around to answer him, she found him seated on the training bench that was closest to her mat. He had his elbows braced on his thighs, his beautiful but weary face expectantly watching her. He seemed truly lost. She just couldn't lie to him in this state. And never would she have guessed that this man of all people would hit that soft spot of hers. So she sat down cross-legged on her mat again, wondering where this new, daring conversation would take her.

"You mean the dead fields? I guess everyone has seen them, but it's not a thing anyone would risk talking about publicly." The Psy race had learned to look away from anything suspicious or dangerous. Those were Council matters and you didn't interfere with those, if you wanted to stay alive and out of the rehabilitation center.

"Do you know a way to shield from them?"

So that was what this was all about. Had he dared to go close to that vicious rot? No wonder he was looking so battered. She had once accidentally touched such a space and kept away from them ever since. There had not been many things that had terrified her as much as that experience.

So she answered with a slow shake of her head. "The Net itself is dying. There are no shields against death." She knew she risked her neck with an honest answer but she couldn't stop herself. It was as if her Arrow training just couldn't coexist with her desire to heal. It took serious effort to keep even the façade of an uncaring Psy up.

"Why do you think it is dying?"

"You already know that, don't you?"

Kaleb noted she tried to evade the question. No wonder. His behavior was highly illogical. Why confide in her? And why should an Arrow of all people know things about the Net he hadn't been able to unearth for years? And yet it seemed just natural to talk to her. "Silence. It's taking the life of the Net. But I don't understand how. It was supposed to be our salvation. Why did it fail?"

_Just say you don't know! Get out of this conversation immediately! And stop trying to fix him! _Alja scalded herself and listened to her own reason for once – at least she tried. "I don't think it's wise to talk to you about these things, Kaleb." Pronouncing his forename gave her another strange and very tempting sensation of intimacy. And one that was certainly false. "One usually survives longer around a Councilor if one keeps out of matters like that."

"You're part of our power superstructure now. Here people survive longer if they are useful. And I thought your closeness to emotion might provide me with new insights in the subject of Silence."

Slowly he seemed to be getting to his usual self again. She was relieved about that but it also meant she had to be very careful now about what trouble she was getting herself in.

_Trust him!_ A feeling. A memory of the advice of her only true friend. _I can't. But I trust you my friend,_ she thought.

"Then I'll try to be useful as long as possible." Her ironic undertone wasn't lost to him. "Emotion is a part of our nature and we can't cut it out without dying. We saw that when we tried to breed empathy out of our genes." In the pursuit of Silence they had tried of course. The result had been destabilization of the Net. So the attempts had been stopped and the E-designation simply been deleted from the record. Few Psy still knew they ever existed. "But still we tried to cage our feelings. You cannot lock away a part of yourself, not in the long run. It's like trying to choke off a limb: it will start rotting away, infecting the whole body in the process. I think that's what's happening to the Net." She knew it, understood it on a level only someone like her could.

"So you think conditioning out emotions wasn't successful. You think they're still there."

"Of course they are. The conditioning is successful against _actively feeling_ in most cases. But in all of us there are still emotions underneath it all. They still motivate us on an unconscious level."

"That sounds like a contradiction."

He might be one of the sharpest minds of their race but – like almost all of them – he was obviously emotionally illiterate.

"Ok. I'll try to make it simple. Compare it to thought and knowledge: You _know_ that grass is green, don't you?" Her voice held a tone as if she was talking to a retarded child. Provoking him – again. He patiently played along, realizing that he was recovering at an unusually fast rate now.

"Yes of course."

"But you're not thinking 'grass is green' all the time." She was sitting on the floor below him and still managed to give the impression, that she was the teacher here and he the student. An experience someone with his power did not often come across. Even stranger was the fact that he didn't mind at all. He just focused on her words and those mesmerizing sky-fall eyes that seemed a little more at rest tonight.

"No it is knowledge. I can retrieve the fact whenever necessary."

"Exactly. Now imagine someone told you it was forbidden to _think_ that grass is green. That someone even threatened you with death – or rehabilitation for that matter – should you ever think of green grass again. Then you could avoid _thinking_ it. You could lock away that knowledge deep in your mind. But you would still _know_. And maybe if you didn't think of it for a long time, you would forget that you ever knew it at all. But if you needed to draw a meadow you would paint it green. You wouldn't need to think '_I'll paint the grass green because I know grass is green._' You'd just act on the knowledge you have."

"I see. You're saying it's the same with emotions: Just because we don't allow ourselves to feel at any given moment, doesn't mean there are no emotions."

At least he was learning fast, she thought. "Yes. And there are always some situations in which we don't think through every motivation of our actions but still act on whatever impulses lie in the deepest core of our souls."

She really had an interesting way to look at things. What she said made absolute sense and confirmed what he'd suspected for a while. And it might be true for most other Psy, but not for him. He was sure there was nothing inside him but the darkness he had buried too deep to ever show through even in the most unconscious actions. "I was right. Your psychological understanding is really helpful. You could come far if you agree to frequently apply those abilities in your job here too."

Trying to bait her with power. At least he gave her that much credit as a Psy. And if this was another test she had obviously passed it. But she wasn't yet ready to let this go, not without getting at least a glimpse of his own motives. He didn't appear stubbornly committed to Silence so far and she needed to know if there was any chance she could really trust him. She'd risk using just a little more of her powers to see if maybe he would help her against all odds.

"If you call what I just told you helpful instead of heretical, you must be very open-minded to the implications."

So careful, he thought. She was very good at wording things without actually saying them. He rewarded her with honesty. "There's no need to beat around the bush. I am fully aware that Silence in its current state is doomed. And I will not try to avoid that fact by taking out the ones who dare speak the truth."

"Then you also know that we're not ready to give it up. We've got nothing to replace it with, nothing else that can give us stability." An uncontrolled collapse of Silence would devastate the Net and throw them all into a pit of madness. "And we may run out of options if we don't find something soon."

"As I said in the meeting today, I want to be prepared for all eventualities and it seems so much the better that I have someone around who can help figure out how to deal with that problem too." The look he gave her was almost expectant.

"I don't know if I can. I might seem like an expert on emotion to you, but I have barely more experience with it than any other Psy with a defective conditioning." _I only hope, I can buy enough time to find a way to give our race back what I know to be the one thing that may heal us. _"None of us knows how to deal with the violence and the evil inside us. Otherwise we'd never have had a need for Silence in the first place. We still try to deny the beast inside us but in truth we just trapped it in a very fragile cage."

"And it's threatening to break out every moment." That was something no one understood better than him. "The changelings are way ahead of us in that point. They have accepted their beasts, learned to coexist with them. Maybe we should learn from them."

"That's a bold suggestion, but reasonable. Is that what you'll do when Silence falls?"

"You grew up in the Arrow Squad. You know that for some of us there is no choice."

"I know some of us believe that. But even the most lethal abilities can be controlled in other ways." She was going too far. Again. He would remember this conversation when he was no longer under her influence. She couldn't take back the words, but slowly let her psychic influence on him ebb away.

"Maybe. But even if we ever find those ways, there is nothing for me in the world of emotion. You know how people become Council. We're no philanthropists." And what he'd done to become Councilor wasn't even half of the wrong he'd caused. "I will always be better off Silent."

As if to emphasize what he just said, he rose and pulled up that wall of ice again. And it hurt her. Talking to him had been so easy, so natural even dangerous as it was. But the familiarity had been a deception – one of her own making. Now reality hit her in the face with a bat of ice. And she didn't bear to feel that coldness from him.

_What did you think he'd do? Magically trust you without you making him? Fall for your little healing tricks? Well, a big fat nothing – that's what you get. That's what you'll always get from them! _There it was again. She knew that voice only too well. It was the angry loneliness that spoke from the bottom of her soul, the part of her that had turned dark after what she'd done. And it was tempting her to use her powers to get what she wanted like all others of her race would have done. This had to stop. She needed to keep her psychic senses closed and get away from him now. So she rose too, taking leave with a huddled excuse, not caring about the impression she made.

Left behind in the gym, Kaleb was suddenly wondering how he had ended up in this conversation. He only knew he had sought her out and found it completely logical to trust her only moments ago. He made a note to be more careful when he approached the dead fields the next time. Obviously they were messing with his mind – or could it be her?

No. He was a cardinal telepath. He would've detected any intrusion. He revised every word that had passed between them. Fortunately she had been naïve enough to share some very dangerous views of her own. Maybe he could use this strange encounter to his advantage after all.

Anyway after what had just happened he wouldn't rest until he knew everything about her.

* * *

**Personal files of the Center for Infants with Arrow Potential**

Alja Dardo:

* * *

Date of Birth: 04.06.2054

Facility: CIAP Rome (Italy)

Date of entry: 05.06.2054

Form of contract: None, biological parents deceased

Possible Designations and Gradient measurement:

-cardinal potential

-genetic evidence of X-marker

-strong telepathy

-overall instable abilities

* * *

17.03.2058: instability of X-Marker increasing – transference to new CIAP Auckland (New Zealand) recommended

12.4.2058: transference to new Center in New Zealand – high level monitoring of stability set in effect by Marino Ghetty (Head of CIAP)

23.04.2058: rapid decrease in stability – genetic suppression of X-marker mandatory

01.05.2058: genetic treatment ineffective so far – termination within two weeks in case of continuing failure of treatment

13.05.2058: genetic treatment fully effective – priority assignment of the case to Marino Ghetty (Head of CIAP) – new assessment of designations necessary

20.05.2058: corrected assessment of designations:

\- S cardinal

\- Tp 2.7

\- Tk 1.8

(secondary designations are rough estimates, other abilities not quantified – due to genetic interference after treatment)


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

Alja woke the next morning to find her schedule for the day changed. Her first appointment had been set to meet – surprise, surprise – Kaleb Krychek himself again at the gym. The situation got rapidly more precarious and it had been her own making. Considered again in the bright light of the day their renewed nightly encounter was nothing but surreal and probably just fueling any suspicions Kaleb already had about her. But she couldn't help it. He shattered all her control simply by being in the vicinity.

It hit her again when she entered the training room and found him already warming up at a big sandbag. He was wearing all black just like her, dressed in long flowing martial arts pants and a close-fitting T-shirt that revealed the hard, muscled lines of a body honed to perfection. She also noticed a tight bandage on one of his forearms, although he didn't seem hurt. On the contrary, he moved with lethal speed and grace. His body was even more appealing than his appearance in the suits had promised. She felt something in the lower regions of her abdomen come alive when she watched him. She knew what the sensation meant and thought it couldn't be true. How in hell could this man incite such a response in her? He was a wall of stone: Beautifully carved, but still cold and immovable.

Focusing on the challenge ahead she pulled herself together once more and with a clipped "Good morning" she went to the mats for a short stretching routine. This had to do for a warm up. She wouldn't risk wasting any more strength. She also didn't waste any words today just wanting to get this over and try to scrape up some peace of mind. So she just inclined her head in silent consent when he asked whether she was ready.

Being on the mat with him helped a little to focus on her training, although his physical closeness still registered on a level that was completely inappropriate for a sparring session. On top of it all she had the impression he held back with her, maybe trying to figure out how she reacted. And maybe thinking she couldn't take him on. It picked on her pride. After a few rounds of circling each other with only very slight contact it annoyed her enough to go in more aggressively, putting all her concentration into the meanest moves she knew.

Of course Kaleb had trained not to use his Tk during sparring before. But it was so integral a part of his nature that it had never been completely out. And until now there hadn't been a problem with that. He had never encountered someone who could block it so thoroughly. Today he found out his movements were a fraction slower and the force he put in the impact of his hits was a little harder to fine tune. Still he was absolutely lethal. It just matched Alja's own cunning fighting style.

She fought hard, mean and dirty and she had an excellent perception of her opponent: She seemed to have sensed that he needed to adjust to the lack of Tk. As a result he felt her shields flaring in and out, alternately blocking his Tk completely or allowing him to come closer with it just to imbalance him again when he did. She came very close to scoring a hit or a kick more than once and she was damn fast. But he was faster. When she aimed the next hit he evaded her fist by a mere inch catching her hand and twisting it around in a painful wristlock.

Stupid that she hadn't anticipated it, Alja thought. But then he made a mistake, stopping at that, thinking he had her already under control. She could take more than a little pain and she still had her legs free. She had a slightly wrong angle for the intended move but was sure it'd work nonetheless with a little strain on her wrist. Bracing herself against the pain that was sure to follow she aimed a fast kick right at his head twisting out of his grip with a cartwheel in the same motion. She registered the pain without flinching and felt something tear in her wrist but she hit his temple hard with the back of her foot and was free from his grip to get away.

Now she had really taken him by surprise. She had struck him so hard he would have lost balance, if she and her shields hadn't moved out of range and allowed him to steady himself with Tk. And he felt a stinging pain spreading from the side of his head that was promising a brightly colored bruise. He immediately started to work on the hurt area with Tk. He had no Tk-Cell abilities but his skills were fine-tuned enough to slow the blood flow and avoid severe bruising that wouldn't look appropriate in a public appearance.

It took him a second to realize she still stood in a guarded position waiting for his next attack. And all of a sudden he was very aware of her breathing, or more specifically the way her breasts moved as her chest rose and fell. It was – distracting. He remembered he should concentrate, act in some way. But he wasn't sure if moving his head too fast would be a good idea right now. So he called it off. "I guess this round goes to you."

When she lowered her hands and relaxed, she instinctively touched her healthy hand to the hurt one for a moment. Long enough for him to see and draw the right conclusion. Of course she couldn't have escaped the lock without hurting herself. Why had she done something so stupid? "Why didn't you yield, when I had you in the wristlock?"

"Yielding is not an option. And my wrist is worth less than my life." The answer came prompt and clear, not a hint of pain in her voice.

"But this was a training session. Your life was not in danger."

"There are no training sessions. I have to be ready to do what it takes to survive at any time."

That was extreme, even for an Arrow, especially considering, that he could have easily snapped her wrist, had the angle been slightly different. The realization hit him like a second kick but on the mental plane.

He had hurt her. That was not acceptable.

The idea was completely irrational. She was a trained Arrow, used to much worse than a sprained wrist. But he caught himself wishing he hadn't reflexively tightened the hold on her hand, when she'd started to move.

And there it was again, a slight feeling of uneasiness – almost pain – creeping in on his mind. But it didn't come from the kick he'd caught. This sensation started deeper in his brainstem. At that moment he knew what it was that had been lingering on the edge of his awareness ever since Alja had started working for him. It was a sensation that he hadn't encountered for such a long time he had almost forgotten what it was: the awareness to a threat to his conditioning. The small warning signs of his mind against emotion, known as dissonance. And she was the reason for these warnings. That was dangerous. His Silence could never be allowed to fail. He had made sure of that by all means until today. Almost without conscious thought he scanned for the finest cracks in the Protocol and started to repair them. It wouldn't be enough. He needed to eliminate the ongoing threat Alja turned out to be.

Killing her was the first solution that leapt to his mind. It was a safe way to ensure she stopped triggering whatever it was that caused his conditioning to contact his consciousness for the first time since he was a teenager. But he wouldn't do it yet. First he had to find out whether this was a deliberate trap. If not – well, he didn't kill innocents, if not necessary. Maybe he'd find a way around killing her.

Or maybe he just wanted to find one.

"Go and get your wrist checked in the M-unit. I don't have a habit of beating up my subordinates and I neither want any rumors about physical assault on my behalf nor do I want your functioning impaired."

_Congratulations you did it again! _Alja cut off the sarcastic little voice in her head, having noticed something intriguing: She was sure she'd heard just a tint of anger in his voice. But reaching out with her psychic senses she felt nothing – again.

* * *

**Secret personal files of the Arrow Squad**

Alja Dardo:

* * *

Main designation: S cardinal

Secondary designations: Tp 2.7, Tk 1.8 (rough estimate, other Abilities not quantified

due to genetic interference)

Active service since 01.02.2073

Jax program: not implied due to genetic interference

Overall success rate: 100%

Relevant collateral damage: 7%

Current Missions: Covert elimination of Arthur Lightwing (Changeling)

* * *

14.01.2074: current mission accomplished – medical check-up – shows mild mental instability – field medic ordered her off duty for two weeks for preservation of functionality

12.02.2074: repeated medical check-up – field medic attested full recovery of mental stability – assignment to retrieve information of IceLake changeling pack, Norway – offensive action not expected


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

Alja would rather not have an M-Psy looking too closely at her, but it was too late for that. Damn, she hadn't thought about it. She had just followed Marino's iron rule never to yield in a fight, especially when the opponent was potentially stronger.

_Never admit weakness or even defeat. Your disposition makes you weaker than the others. Don't ever let anyone see you're not ten times tougher than everyone else. Otherwise you won't survive._

She probably shouldn't have taken on Kaleb. She was already on his radar and she had done nothing to appear less suspicious so far. And she knew that he only tried to provoke her, to make her give away, whatever he suspected so far. Still she couldn't resist provoking back, too tempted to see if this powerful man ever slipped his carved-out-of-stone countenance. It was totally irrational behavior that had gotten him a perfect excuse for a check-up from one of his own M-Psy.

She thought she'd better get it done directly, sure he'd check if she'd followed his order – and most likely demand the results of the examination. There was no such thing as medical confidentiality, when one worked for someone like him. Arriving at the M-unit of the Krychek HQ she found out she'd been well advised to do so. She was already expected and submitted to a full check-up, because Mr. Krychek was very concerned about the health of his employees.

_Well fuck._

* * *

The call to his office came two hours after she'd left the M-unit having got some cell rebuilding treatment and a bandage for some slightly ripped ligaments. At least that wouldn't take too long to heal. She only hoped the M-Psy hadn't looked too closely at the indicators of her psychic designation. Her mind might be well shielded, but there were other parameters like hormonal levels and some genetic markers that she couldn't mask in a full examination.

Kaleb didn't waste any words of introduction, when Alja entered his office. After what he'd just learned, he was definitely through with being played for a fool. He'd get answers from her one way or the other. And if she thought her shields would protect her she'd learn that he wasn't a Psy who relied on his psychic abilities alone.

"I will spare you the details of your medical report, as I have neither time nor reason for anymore small talk with you. I have been informed that some of your parameters indicated, that you have not only an S designation. So I am asking once more: is there anything else I should know about?"

His voice was pure ice as always, but it clearly held a threat. This was serious but she was sure he didn't ask to play games. If he knew everything he wouldn't need to ask. But she had no idea how much he suspected. So she decided on playing dumb, gambling for time and maybe for more information.

"I don't know what your medic found. I have some minor designations apart from the shielding like any other Psy. And those _are_ mentioned in my file. If there is anything irregular, maybe it's a result of my human heritage."

"Yes, there are quite a lot of things that seem irregular about you. For example your very interesting insights in the Net and the consequences of Silence."

So she was about to pay the price for her naïve openness the night before. She should have kept her mouth shut. "I feel. I'm not Silent. I perceive things others don't. You said it yourself." That was perilously close to the truth. And still it would never suffice to talk herself out of this. Her training kicked in and her mind started working through the options. But nothing could have prepared her for what came next.

Out of thin air a big cardboard box appeared on the desk right in front of her. He had teleported it in. Its lids stood slightly ajar but still covered whatever was inside.

"Then maybe you can explain why this package was delivered to my headquarters an hour ago, addressed to you. Is this a result of your human heritage too or of your emotional perceptiveness?" The coldest sarcasm in his voice.

"I don't…"

"Just look inside," he cut her off. His voice a razorblade.

She needed to take a few steps around the side of the desk to reach the box. To her discomfort it brought the large window front of his office right at her back. She felt exposed and was sure it was on purpose. Slowly she lifted the lids and froze the moment she saw the contents.

The eyes of a man called Marino Ghetty stared at her. Blank. Lifeless. The box contained the severed head of her former instructor.

She was too well-trained to scream but she couldn't help stumbling two steps backwards. Then her back touched the glass of the window. She had in no way anticipated this. But the message was clear.

Someone knew.

Probably the man who had ordered her death so long ago. And he had found her far too quickly. Now the hunt was on and she was the prey. She felt her control slip further at the realization and tried to keep focused on the situation at hand. She had always known this day might come. He hadn't gotten to her directly right away. It was a good sign that she was obviously out of his reach at the moment. He tried to scare her instead, set her emotionally out of balance. Suddenly all worries about Kaleb discovering her secret abilities were shoved aside by a fear that was so old, no training could help her overcome it.

She wished she could consult someone from the Squad about this new situation, but it didn't seem she'd get the time. She was on her own again. And the walls were closing in fast. The rule for such situations was to deny everything and if that was impossible: stick to the truth but reveal as little as possible. Only that even very little of the truth might qualify her for instant extermination.

Kaleb didn't give her any more time for hesitation. The next moment he gripped her uninjured arm and stripped away the willow glass blade she'd worn under her sleeve. It was pressed to her throat the same second, her body pinned to the window front by his. Another action she hadn't anticipated. Fuck. She was too slow.

"This is the last time I'll ask: What else didn't you tell me yet? Who would send you such an obviously personal, emotional message and to what purpose?"

She felt the pressure of the deadly blade on her throat, the cool glass of the window at her back and registered the movements on the square far below out of the corner of her eye. She was in the middle of Moscow, in the lion's den and there was no way out, not physically. She had to come up with something, and fast. But although the man in front of her posed a lethal threat it was even harder to think with the raw, male heat of his body pressed against hers. She could even smell him around her: It was as if the air she breathed in was charged with electricity. He smelled like the air before a thunderstorm and of darkness so deep it should have frightened her, but she just wanted to sink in it, lose herself in it. His face was so close she could feel his breath on her skin, the heat of it seeping right through to her bones. The numbness of her senses fading away like mist in the morning sun in his presence.

_Think Alja! Say something!_ She mentally slapped herself out of it.

"The head belongs to my former instructor in the Arrow training. His name was…"

"I know who the man is. That was easy enough to find out. He was killed because of his connection to you. That much is obvious. I want the information that only you seem to be able to give me. And you better start talking if you want to survive the next twenty seconds."

"Someone thinks my flawed Silence is a threat to the Squad. And that I might destabilize it, infect it. He tries to set me off emotionally, because he can't get to me directly as long as I'm in your service." She tried for _as little as possible_. It didn't work.

"Not good enough." Kaleb wanted more explanation; although in his mind the pieces of information already started clicking together like a jigsaw. Slowly the possible truth dawned on him: Incomplete conditioning wasn't considered infectious in general. And it could not only be caused by human genes, but also by certain Psy designations, that could be called 'emotionally infectious'.

He increased the pressure of the blade on her skin. He needed to get all he could from her as long as he was able to hold up the threat. His conditioning was already struggling hard to fight the irrational impulse to release her. It didn't help that suddenly all he could imagine was stroking his bare fingers instead of the blade over the soft skin of her throat. And that scent of her – so soft and ultimately feminine. She smelled like a field of wild flowers after the rain, both tart and sweet, and heady with life. It was virtually compelling to lean even closer, the increasing spikes of dissonance in the back of his head powerless against the sensation. He stifled the impulse with sheer willpower. After a slow, deep breath that pressed her breasts distractingly against his chest she continued, confirming his speculations.

"I have a minor empathic talent. It is not mentioned in my records, because the designation doesn't exist officially anymore." And because Ming LeBon would have taken her out for it, however useful she might have otherwise been to the Squad. She knew that since she was four.

"You should never have been allowed to the Arrow Squad with it. But I still don't see any reason, why someone should follow you up here and send you a severed head. And if you are really capable of feeling you should get scared now, because I'm done playing, if I don't get more plausible answers soon."

Now he sounded arrogant. It provoked her. She'd been living under a death threat all her life. And she'd always feared that one day it would get too close for her to react accordingly. But now that she found herself just a small move of a male hand away from death, she went suddenly calm. She functioned just like she'd always been trained to do. Every cell of her body and every part of her mind focused on finding a way out, surviving.

She could use her ability with full force now and run. Her chances were slim as soon as she was alone out there. That was probably exactly the outcome that the gruesome message intended to achieve. So she'd try letting him in on a part of her most dangerous secret first.

_Trust him._

Yes, that was what she was supposed to do. If she was careful not to show too much of her powers, he might see her as a useful asset, even if it rubbed her the wrong way to ever offer those talents to the Council again. She'd do what she must to survive. And suddenly there was this tenacious, provocative streak of hers again making her lips twitch in a small mischievous smile about what was to come now. Another reaction that told her how fast her stability was decreasing. But no time to consider that now.

"You better not try to scare me. I can scare you back." she said.

Kaleb was taken aback by the sudden, absurd threat. Was she still playing for time? "No, you can't and I don't see how you're answering my question."

"Take away the blade. And I'll show you." She gave him a look of cool challenge and provocation.

He knew it was a risk to do as she asked but he had begun to feel more than a little uneasy about threatening her and it was getting difficult to think through the intruding emotional impulses and the competing dissonance at once. So he braced himself against any psychic attack, not knowing what to expect but sure she couldn't match his strength. Then he slowly lifted the blade off her skin and stepped back just out of reach. The dissonance faded at least a little with every inch he brought between his body and hers.

The next moment he felt it: sheer terror. His heart kicked up and cold sweat broke out along his spine. He instinctively took a few steps backwards and it was all he could do not to teleport out directly in a desperate attempt to get away from the danger. The urge to run as fast as he could was almost overwhelming. Then it was all over. His heart was still racing but the emotion was gone. It had been intense but his conditioning hadn't reacted at all.

Alja was careful to observe his reaction very closely to be able to adjust her next steps according to the outcome. His face was a mask of terror, just for a moment. Then it iced over again leaving just a slight trace of the massive surprise she must have caused. Knowing there was no need to hesitate any longer now that she'd gone this far, she added the appropriate, mechanical explanation that would satisfy his Psy mind.

"This is what I can do. I _can_ scare you. I can make you feel anything I want. I have empathic abilities of the subdesignation projection – thought to be extinct. But as you're Council I suppose you know what that is." When he didn't interrupt or attack her again she went on. "I made someone very afraid of me once. So he wanted me dead and thought he succeeded. Now he knows he hasn't and comes after me again. So we considered that I would be safest in the shadow of someone as powerful as a Councilor, in trade for my services of course. The Arrows don't give up one of their own. That is all the answer I have to give."

Seconds of suspense ticked away as she still guardedly waited for his reaction.

Alja had been right about Kaleb's access to classified information. He had found fragments of data that still cycled the Net, not only about the E-designation itself but also about possible subdesignations: Some empaths were thought to be stronger at perceiving and taking in emotions others at projecting them out. Only that it was believed none of the latter subdesignation still existed. When Silence was first installed they had tried to remove all empathic genes from the population, by labeling embryos with the respective markers diseased. When they found out that the Net was too instable without them, the Council had allowed for the subdesignation that was perceived less dangerous to persist, but it had been made sure no embryo with the markers of the projective subtype was carried to term. Another attempt that had obviously failed.

If this Arrow could incite emotions in others, that explained the strange behavior of some of the subjects involved in her missions: She was a threat to Silence. He should kill her now and deal with the consequences later. It was too obvious now she had been set up to destabilize him.

Only he couldn't do it. It didn't matter that there was no rational reason for his continuing reluctance to remove someone who posed an unpredictable threat.

"Who else knows of your ability?" he asked instead.

"Only very few Arrows and some of those who were formerly in the Squad."

"Ming." It was easy to figure out now.

"He is supposed to think me dead. He ordered my execution almost twenty-four years ago. But he knew of my existence once."

"And you were living right under his nose all the time?"

"The man whose head is in that box gave me a new identity as one of the Arrows in training. It was the best hideout until the Squad transferred loyalty to you and Ming started to file through whatever they might betray to you. There was a high risk he would find out I wasn't dead. But until now he just felt bored by me, whenever he came for a closer look at me." For a moment there was that tiny, sneaky smile again. "Most of the others did too."

"Ming LeBon doesn't ... Oh, I see." She'd _made_ them feel bored to stay undetected. She didn't seem to have the same strategy with him. He wasn't in the least bored by her. He found her more and more interesting by the hour. But that didn't mean she hadn't used her peculiar abilities on him. "How often have you done this to me before?"

"Only once and only at a very low rate. Last night, when you came to the gym. I thought there was something wrong with you. You were too Silent."

He had expected her to deny it, to crumble under the threat. People usually did. She either had some kind of master plan he hadn't yet figured out or simply guts of steel. Both alternatives deserved his respect. Then he remembered his strange behavior and the accelerated recovery in her presence. He couldn't recall any reaction of his conditioning in that situation, too. There had been absolutely nothing that seemed off or wrong. But he knew nothing about her supposed talent. He had no way of knowing if she was lying. A tricky situation, but he didn't flinch at a challenge.

"And what exactly did you do?"

"I projected a positive emotion to make up for the lack that I thought was choking you."

"What emotion? I don't recall feeling anything."

"That's because you're not likely to be used to it. I projected a sense of safety and trust."

So that was why he had been so open with her the other night. Slowly the picture became clear. That was also why the Arrows had kept her. "You are a weapon, a most perfidious one."

Alja only hoped he saw a weapon he could use. "I know you won't believe this, but I really did it to help. Although I admit, I used the opportunity to find out more about your motives and how tolerant you really were about the flawed Silence. I needed to know if I could rely on your protection even if you knew the truth about all of my designations."

"Right. I don't believe you. So what am I going to do with you?" It was clearly a rhetorical question, but she answered anyway.

"I have not had access to any classified information except some details concerning your security. I am sure Delenko can fix that and you could return me to the Squad."

So she wanted to run. He found he didn't want to let her go. Of course it was only because of her highly valuable skills, he tried to make himself believe. A part of his mind registered the idea, that his reluctance to let her go, came from far more visceral needs. He brushed it away, not caring that this also brought him one step further down the dangerous descent towards breaking Silence.

"How will you survive, if only another Councilor can protect you?"

"I'll find ways. It's what I do."

There was something stubborn in the way she said it – a kind of steely determination not to give up, not to give in. It fit. _Yielding is not an option_ she'd said. She obviously stuck true to that throughout her entire life. This woman would never yield and never beg for help. But maybe she'd trade. "Let me talk to Aden first. Maybe we can find an agreement. You can leave for your quarters, but please stay inside the building for the time being."


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

That was a little too easy Alja thought. She was sure there was more trouble to follow. But finally she seemed to get a little time to think. Maybe it would be enough to let her find a way out of this. She could try and run for it now. Using projection on her colleagues in security to make them let her out would be easy. And once she was out of sight, she would switch to another mental appearance in and out of the Net and it would take even Kaleb considerable time to ever find her again. If she switched every few days, the effort would likely be more than he was willing to spend. After all he didn't know enough to be motivated to search for her as frantically as Ming LeBon, who would still be after her. In addition to that she didn't want to leave. Even if the chance that this worked out well was minuscule, she wanted it to. She was sure she had glimpsed something in Kaleb that made him more than a ruthless Councilor on a quest for power. He hid it well, but she sensed it and it drew her to him almost as if she was under compulsion. And she was torn between that compulsion and her survival instinct that told her to get away as fast and as far as possible.

There was not much she could do in her current situation but turn to the one who had always been there for her, since the day she'd started to think. Her only true friend. So she returned to her quarters as asked, sat down cross-legged on her bed and entered the Net. She had barely called out for it, when she felt the presence of the NetMind brush against hers.

_What am I gonna do now?_ She asked, transmitting the sense of a question along with an image of a helplessly looking face. She had been talking to the NetMind since before she could speak. They communicated rarely in words, more in emotions, images and sometimes transmitted sensations. But over the time her mind had developed the ability to almost automatically translate the exchange in simple spoken language to make it fit in the usual, clear thought patterns of a grown Psy.

_Trust him. _

Again, that sense of trust with a soft nudge against her confused mind.

_Find him._

_Who? _

_Find him. Was once. A long time ago._

_What was once?_

Then she understood the NetMind was trying to send something more and accepted the transmission. This was not one of their usual communicative images. It was a visual sequence that was stored in the Nets vast memory.

An accident. A bullet-train that was derailed and wrecked terribly. The visual zoomed in on a woman, probably human, Alja guessed from the panicked way she was tearing and pushing at some big piece of wreckage. Then she saw the reason. Under the heavy, warped metal piece was another, smaller human body. A little girl was covered almost completely by the wreckage. She was trapped.

At that moment a small figure blinked into the picture. The boy was maybe six or seven years old. Alja knew at once who it was. Even as a child his face already showed the cold focus she'd seen often enough recently. The visual showed her a glimpse of Kaleb's past. Without hesitation he lifted the wreckage off the girl using Tk. One of her legs had been crushed so bad it was hard to recognize it as a human limb but she was still conscious. Seconds later a team of Medics rushed to the frantic woman and the badly injured child and Kaleb vanished from the scene as if he'd never been there. The visual ended accompanied by another request.

_That one. Still there!? Find! _

The scene hadn't surprised her as much as it should have. She had known there was more about Kaleb than met the eye. Only she had no idea if the boy from the visual was still to be found alive inside the man who seemed to be a wall of armored concrete and ice.

_How?_ She asked.

A cascade of pictures that was hard to decipher even for Alja: people who were digging in the earth, a flashlight lighting a dark cave, a mind scanning through the vast data streams of the Net and then the symbol of the NetMind itself reaching out to the blazing star of a cardinal mind but being blocked. Then it was clear what the NetMind was trying to say: _Find! Just find. Anyhow. He is in a place I can't reach. _

_I'll try. I promise._ She didn't bother that her message was accompanied by a slight feeling of helpless desperation and confusion. Her friend had never scalded her for feeling like that. On the contrary it answered with a wave of compassion and pictures of touch and affection. She knew that response very well. These pictures and sensations had taught her the positive side of emotion, when she was a child lost in loneliness and fear. They weren't enough to soothe her now. Not when she had caught a glimpse of what real touch would feel like, not when the affection she craved was that of one very particular male.

_Why can you not reach him? Is it Silence?_

As a child she had believed everyone spoke to the NetMind. Marino Ghetty had soon taught her otherwise and to keep those encounters to herself as well as anything else about her. But if the NetMind tried to contact someone it usually could. She just didn't know how it worked with those who no longer understood the emotional aspects of its way to communicate.

_Yes. Now Silence. Won't listen the right way. Not like you. He only talks. Only asks. Once another man was there. _A picture of Santano Enrique._ Much fear. Very empty. _And then it added the Symbol of the DarkMind blocking it too.

Alja didn't need to ask any more about that. She already knew that Kaleb had been the deceased Councilors protégé from a very early age. That was why it was all the more strange that she should trust him. Santano Enrique had been a sociopathic murderer. She also remembered the single time she had encountered him and the consequences only too clearly. Enrique had been the one who requested the assassination that had been her first kill.

_Why him? Why Kaleb?_ She asked.

_You help the Net, help me. He too. _

_I'll do what I can._


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

Aden answered to the telepathic knock instantly.

_Kaleb. What is it?_

_I need to talk to you in person. Can you come?_

Kaleb knew the field medic and unofficial leader of the Arrows was never more than a wink away from Vasic, one of the rare Tk-V, the true teleporters. He could switch locations as fast as Kaleb himself. And if things turned nasty, he wanted both of them on his home ground. He wasn't disappointed. The two Arrows appeared in his office seconds later. He didn't waste time on greetings.

"I think we might have a misunderstanding that I would like to clear up as soon as possible."

"What is the matter?" Not the slightest movement in the faces of the two assassins.

"Would you say that the Arrows officially transferred their loyalty to me?"

Aden understood at once. "This is about Alja."

Instinctively Aden reached out to find out if her mind was in the vicinity – and found out that they were trapped in a telepathic cage. As long as they were in the room they couldn't communicate outside. Probably there was a block on Tk and teleportation too. Aden and Vasic were both very skilled but Kaleb was a dual cardinal. It was very likely that even their combined strength was no match for him.

"I seem to have been given only a fraction amount of what there is to know about her."

To Kaleb's surprise it was Vasic who spoke next. The man was usually the silent part of the pair. "We considered full disclosure."

Aden went on as if they were one mind: "But trust takes time."

"Something I fully understand. But under the current circumstances we should maybe speed up the process a little."

"What do you suggest?" Aden again. But Kaleb had the impression that Vasic was just as well part of the communication. The two seemed connected on a level that even his cardinal strength couldn't block.

"If it is true that she is here for her protection, I can provide it – under the condition that I get full information on her background and abilities as well as access to those abilities to a degree that can be discussed."

"Maybe we should discuss this with her." Aden seemed just a fraction insecure.

"We will – as soon as I have some knowledge on her origins: For example why she has a designation that is believed to be extinct for decades."

Aden wondered what Kaleb had done to get that information out of her. But it was clear he wouldn't let them know what had happened and where Alja was right now. So he started with the easiest piece of her background.

"Her mother was an Arrow who went rogue on one of her missions among the Forgotten. She broke Silence and –" a short pause, when Aden tried to find an acceptable term "– collaborated with one of her supposed targets and vanished. Two years later her DNA signature turned up in a human hospital. She had given birth and the child needed medical treatment."

"So Alja was found when her mother left her at the hospital?"

"No, her mother didn't leave. She obviously had very strong emotional ties to her offspring. She and the father of the child were killed in psychic combat, trying to protect the baby. Alja was taken alive, because the Arrows didn't want to waste a cardinal's potential or the opportunity to study her extraordinary shields."

"She was born with those shields?" The exact characteristics of psychic powers, especially the potential of cardinals usually manifested when they grew up and learned some kind of control. For the more aggressive skills even that was often too soon.

"Yes. They were so unusual that a first it wasn't clear, they were the cardinal potential that had manifested at birth. Her mother was a very skilled telepath, especially in combat. So there was a good chance Alja would turn out a promising Arrow as well. And she did, even if her cardinal ability is rather defensive. Unfortunately she seems to have inherited some very rare empathic skills from her father's side as well." From one of the Forgotten, the Psy who had left the Net to build their own community, when Silence was introduced. "They're not very strong but make it difficult for her to take on various tasks of a usual Arrow. She tends to get unstable after kills. That's why I did my best to get her assigned to spying missions or for background work as a shield on team missions."

Kaleb had heard that empaths couldn't hurt others, because the effect rebounded on them. Rumor had it that they'd go insane or even die, if they tried to kill. So if she had worked as an Arrow she couldn't be too sensitive. He recalled from her file that she had at least three kills on her missions. How could the effect of her powers be so strong then? The fear she'd made him feel had only lasted a moment but he wasn't keen on reliving that again. It had been intense enough to remind him of a lonely, frightened boy in the claws of a monster – someone he no longer knew.

"But she can use the empathic skills on the job as well. Since they're completely unknown in the Net, she's practically an untraceable weapon." Kaleb wanted no misunderstandings why he was interested in her enough to keep her around in spite of another Councilor trying to hunt her down.

"Yes, and it has been very useful a couple of times." Aden admitted.

"Good. Then she'll stay and work here, if I get full information about her and she agrees to put _all_ her skills at my service." A hard deal. Protection from Ming in trade for access to her powers. Aden risked a short glance at his fellow Arrow. Vasic just nodded shortly.

"Kaleb, there is something you need to consider. She also gets unstable when she uses her powers to hurt others. When it starts to show in her behavior she might be listed for rehabilitation by anyone who notices. We're not willing to let that happen to any of us."

"She won't be harmed. I'll make sure of that myself." Kaleb knew the words were true the moment he spoke them aloud. He would not let any harm come even close to her. And the flare of dissonance in the back of his head told him his statement had nothing in common with the cold loyalty of the Arrows.

"Then we have a deal – if she agrees." Another short pause that made Kaleb think the other men were communicating something in silence. Then Aden added: "One more thing before we talk to her: There is no need to mention the part of the deal about her instability in relation to violence. She is ambivalent about that. No Arrow wants to be seen as weak."

Kaleb only nodded in agreement. So they were careful not to hurt her pride – not ignoring her emotional nature. He'd take care to adopt that strategy too.

When Alja entered at his telepathic command she looked alert but also somehow resolved. There was still no hint of fear in her composure. Kaleb let Aden update her on what they'd talked about. He wanted to learn more about how someone she obviously trusted dealt with her. She agreed to the conditions of their deal without further questions. But what struck him even more was that she showed none of the provocativeness she had repeatedly displayed towards himself. She was a perfect inferior in the presence of the other soldiers. And even they seemed a little taken aback by her firm resolve.

"If you want some time to think about this or talk about it alone, I'm sure Kaleb wouldn't mind…" Aden suggested.

"Of course not." They had agreed on the conditions of the deal. And Kaleb was sure everyone in the room was intelligent enough not to make any other arrangements he wouldn't agree with.

"Thank you, but it is unnecessary. My decision is made."

Another short look between Aden and Vasic. And for the first time it occurred to Kaleb that maybe even her fellow Arrows might not know everything about Alja. He would have to find another source of information. Maybe he already knew the right one. He made a mental note to check it.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

Kaleb ordered Alja to stay after the other men had left. He still had a lot of questions. He signaled her to sit down at the desk across from him. The cardboard box and its disgusting contents were already waiting for examination in one of his labs.

"It surprises me that you're so keen to stay here after I threatened you with death barely an hour ago. Are you really that afraid of Ming?"

_Oh come on!_ Alja suppressed the urge to roll her eyes at him. _Tell a Psy you feel and he assumes you have no functioning reason._ Only that for her it seemed to be true. Part of her mind still lingered on the memory of his body pressed against hers when he'd pinned her to the window. Her heart kicked up a little at the thought of that hard muscle and male heat that had almost sent her usually numb senses to overload. _Yeah, while he had a knife at your throat. If that's what gets you off…_ Her own reason started mocking her again. But after her reassuring conversation with the NetMind it was a little easier to pull herself together.

"I'm going to be your secret weapon. Most Psy would give their right arm for such a position." Perfectly true. Most Psy would.

"You didn't strike me as the power-hungry type." But Alja was right. Why shouldn't she have an agenda of her own? He pulled the willow-glass blade out of the inside pocked of his jacket and held it out to her, the flat handle pointing towards her.

"I'm not the anxious type either." The speed with which she took the blade told a different story.

"I apologize for threatening you. That was way over the top." He had no idea where those words came from. He didn't apologize to people. All of his actions were carried out exactly as planned and fully justified.

"Don't bother. Your behavior was only logical."

She discarded the apology with Psy indifference. Suddenly that bugged him. He wanted her to be provocative and disrespectful again. It fit her much better. But she went on before he could say more.

"_I_ should apologize for the kick. That was inappropriate for a sparring-match. But you look very good.–" _Oh no! You didn't just say that, Alja._ The words were out before their meaning registered in the reasonable part of her mind. She quickly tried to correct the lapse. "Your face does. – You haven't got any bruises." The shortest moment of awkward silence. Changing the subject seemed a good idea now. "There's only one thing I'd like to know: How much information about me does the other staff get?"

Kaleb wondered why she suddenly seemed uneasy. It wasn't as if she'd kicked him that hard. At least there was one thing she still seemed concerned about. Her disguise. So that hadn't changed with him knowing about her unusual skills. It could also mean that there was more than he already knew.

"A 'secret weapon' should stay secret. As for your Arrow status, I suppose some of them already suspect. But I see no need to confirm any suspicions at the moment. I guess that meets with your approval."

"It does. Do you have any assignments ready for me?" Deal or not she hoped he wouldn't demand her projection too often. She was emotionally imbalanced enough already. And someone like him wasn't likely to require her skills for healing.

"No, not yet. But I think you have a story to tell. We agreed on full disclosure of your origins." He wanted to know everything about this woman who seemed specifically designed to threaten him, to oppose him. He couldn't affect her with his psychic powers unless she allowed it, while he had no way of blocking or at least detecting hers. He had never met someone who could match him in that way. It was intriguing. It was more than that, but he wasn't ready to admit it.

* * *

Alja started where she knew Aden had stopped; glad she didn't have to tell the part about her parents herself. It hurt her although she'd never known them – the first two on a long list of people who had died because of her. And as of today there was one more name on it.

Marino Ghetty.

"Marino Ghetty was the Arrow in charge of training the youngest children at the facility where they took me. He was very interested in my potential from the start. My first memories are of him and I can hardly recall having had contact to any other trainers before I was four years old. Then Ming LeBon first took interest in me. By that time it was obvious, that I didn't take on the conditioning too well and there were suspicions about my abilities being in a non-martial sector. When Ming came for me, he immediately tried to get through my shields and when he found he couldn't, he tried to make me lower them. But at the time I didn't know how, so I couldn't do it no matter how hard he tried." Kaleb didn't need to ask about the nature of Ming's trying. If the cardinal telepath found his psychic abilities blocked, he would have tried physically – with a lot of pain. "I tried to endure it, stay hard and cold as I was taught. But he didn't stop and at one point I just got too scared and too desperate. I remember I wanted him to understand how I felt to make him stop. So I projected all my fear and pain at him with full force. He didn't even consider that I might be useful in any way. He just ran away as fast as he could and ordered my immediate execution." Alja didn't bother to hide the contempt in her tone, when she said it.

"But Marino Ghetty defied the order." Kaleb leaned back in his chair his eyes not moving from her face. She knew this probably was a dominance game and she should look away under the pressure of that intense gaze and show some respect at last. But this time it wasn't even provocation. She just couldn't bring herself to tear her gaze away from the beautifully calm star fields in his eyes – not when she perceived something like genuine interest in them for the first time.

"It was more accidental at first. Right after the incident was the first time I dropped out of the Net – probably due to the flameout after using so much power. So Ming believed Marino had acted on his orders. But he hadn't. Instead he took the opportunity to hide me in the Net when I relinked. I don't know what he saw in me or why he let me live. He was a scientist. I guess he saw the potential in me rather than the threat." And that potential was far more and far different from what Kaleb had learned today. But she was never going to disclose that truth to anyone. "He signed me into a very remote training facility and changed basically everything about my identity. I even got genetic treatment to bring out the more recessive genes as I grew up. So my originally black hair brightened to red-brown and my facial features evened out to look less like my mothers. By the time I crossed Ming's path again six years later I looked nothing like the girl he had known and was fully capable of retracting my shields and showing him the well-trained but ordinary mind of a future elite soldier. At the time I entered active service the Squad had already begun to estrange from Ming. Our loyalty towards the ones we'd been trained with, fought with, was stronger than our loyalty to a leader who betrayed us in pursuit of power in the Council ranks."

"That's why Aden and Vasic didn't blow your cover."

"Yes, I knew Aden from the compensatory training – the martial training for those whose primary ability doesn't lie in combat. He knew from the start that I was different."

At that moment a small light on Kaleb's computronic desk flashed. He tapped on it and it went out immediately but obviously it was a sign of something important that needed his attention.

"Too bad, we won't have more time to talk today. You can get back to your regular schedule."

She stood up in one fluent movement. "Sir." The single word was frosted and accompanied by one of those minimal nods. Her cool practicality irritated him again. And he realized it wasn't that he was expecting her to act emotional, because he knew she was capable of feeling, but because he wanted her to. He wanted her to be affected by him as he was by her.

He traced her body with his eyes until the door of his office closed. Then he followed her mind with his telepathy until she was in her quarters. There was no real pain yet but he could feel the pressure of the dissonance building up in the back of his head again. And the reaction was only so low, because he actively suppressed the impulses Alja had incited in him. That had never been necessary to this day. The pain controls were only warning lights in case anything should ever escape from the part of his mind he'd started locking away when he was still a child. But he had sealed that part shut almost fifteen years ago. He had never wanted to feel, after what he saw that day.

Today he'd found out that against all his precautions there were still other parts of him that seemed to be capable of emotional reactions. And those were very different from the hate and fear that he'd known when he was a child. When he thought about Alja, he glimpsed something that would probably feel – pleasant. He knew what it was that she triggered in him: attraction. And he was no longer so sure whether he wanted to shut that off too. How long would his self-imposed Silence hold against feelings he _wanted_ to feel?

No, this condition couldn't go on.

He could never be allowed to feel. When he felt innocents suffered. That was a fact that had been burned into his self so deep he didn't even question if there ever might be another way. Although it took significant effort he pulled his hold on Silence strangling-tight once again.

Then he finally reacted to the call from Silver's office.

"Sir, I've been trying to get to you for almost twenty minutes. Your office was under complete technical and psychic lockdown. May I ask what the matter was?" Silver was not used to be shut out. She was his right hand after all.

"I cleared out a security matter with our new shield specialist. Nothing you need to be concerned about." Technically that was not even a lie. "It was necessary that you weren't informed about it before. Now what did you want me for?" He did not usually explain his actions to his subordinates, but Silver and the connection to the Mercant family group had proven a big asset in the surveillance of Pure Psy. He couldn't afford to alienate her by letting himself get distracted by Alja for too long, interesting as she might be.

"My Pure Psy contacts have gotten the mental signature you asked for. As for the voice, I hope the memory record is enough. Shall I telepath it now?"

"Do it. – That was excellent work Silver. Thank you." He'd check up on it to be sure of the quality. But if Silver's contacts were as useful as he had estimated, he already had a perfect use for Alja's skills.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

One day later Judd Lauren, defected Arrow and mate to a beautiful wolf changeling named Brenna Kincaid sat at the breakfast table when his untraceable cellphone beeped.

"What is it baby?" Brenna asked from the kitchen area, knowing the ringtone usually meant something important with the Psy rebellion was going on.

"I don't know. I just received the strangest request from the Ghost. He inquired after Alice Eldrige, asked if it was possible to talk to her." Alice the human scientist who had studied Psy designations before she'd been cryogenically conserved almost a hundred years ago – until the Ghost had found her and handed her to his fellow rebel.

"Now why would he want to do that?" Brenna had come around the counter at the first mention of the Ghost. Judd still kept his cool outwardly most of the time, but she'd learned to read it when there was trouble in his eyes. And recently she'd seen sorrow in them whenever his fellow rebel was mentioned. Now she leaned over his sitting figure to hug her mate from behind, giving him the comfort he'd never ask for.

"I have no idea. Something unexpected must have happened. He'd never have handed her to me if he'd known he'd need her again." His voice was cool but he leaned into her touch in a way that was anything but.

"So he just wants to speak to her and gives you no more information?"

"He never gives away more than absolutely necessary, but that doesn't mean he's double crossing us. He's just very careful whom he trusts."

"Careful? You've been working with him for years. That guy takes being paranoid to the extreme."

"Growing up in the PsyNet does that to you." Deep lines on his forehead as he furrowed his brow in thought.

"There's more. You're worried. You think something is wrong with him." Not breaking skin to skin contact she came around to settle into his lap.

"A lot of things are wrong with the Ghost. And some of them might affect all of us."

"Then we'll get through it. We're strong enough because we are part of a pack. _You_ are part of a pack now. Don't you ever forget that!"

No, he'd never be as lonely and desolate as the Ghost. Even if at times it still took a reminder from the woman who was his heartbeat to make him realize exactly how much he'd won by giving up Silence. "I won't."

The slow smile that accompanied his short answer and the kiss that followed made her fall for him all over again.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18**

Alja didn't see Kaleb for days. But she was sure he was watching her from the shadows. More than once she had the sense of someone following her, although her telepathic scans never revealed anyone. But that meant nothing. Her telepathy was not very strong and his was on cardinal level – just like his Tk. That was one of the very few pieces of information she hadn't learned from her friend in the Net but from Aden just before she left for Moscow. He and Vasic had found out about it not long ago: Kaleb was a dual cardinal.

_Extremely rare but not impossible. _

He could rip people apart with his Tk without even coming close to them. He could teleport to any location on the planet in the blink of an eye, could even teleport to people without knowing where they were. He could telepathically attack minds without them ever seeing it come, could cause the most hideous forms of insanity. And he had done so to a considerable number of people on his quest for power. No one would ever be able to prove it, but it was easy to conclude if you knew where to look for the clues. He was lethal to anyone who got in his way – except to her.

To her he was just as dangerous as any other Psy, because he couldn't affect her with his powers. Was that why the NetMind had chosen her to find out if there was anything left in him but the ruthless, power-hungry Councilor?

She didn't question why the neosentience believed so. She knew it worked in ways she'd never understand but she trusted it like no other being. And she'd do as it asked, because it was her duty to the Net and to a friend who had never let her down, had given her comfort and guidance when Marino had only taught her to survive by hiding, by denying everything she was. But even he had seen more in her, had seen something to be protected by all means even if it meant harming other parts of her. And in the end he had died for it – just like anyone else who got too close to her.

It caused a strange mix of feelings in her: There was the well-known guilt, the desperate anger and also a deep sense of loss although she hadn't been in touch with the man for years. That mixture was very dangerous. It triggered a part of her that she liked to forget most of the time. The part that had turned dark over the years of acting against her nature and that spoke to her with an angry little voice inside her head. And it got harder to silence that voice the more negative emotions built up inside her. And on top of it all came her ever growing attraction towards a man who seemed to be made of ice and stone. Which was something that dark part of her seemed particularly fond of picking on.

She tried to release some of the tension in the gym, meditated for hours and threw herself into the shield-counseling work with a deep motivation to distract herself. But she was past fooling herself that it would work for long. She'd just have to deal with it. Or ask for permission to go out for human contact at last. But she couldn't admit such weakness. At least not yet.

* * *

She was sitting in her office, lost in those thoughts, when Kaleb finally requested her attention again. Without warning he appeared right in front of her desk stating that he had something to do for her. In his ever flawless suit he looked just as gorgeous and inapproachable as always.

"You could've knocked, you know." Pow! The annoyed words came out without her conscious consent – again. He answered without visibly reacting to the provocation – like always.

"I checked if you were counseling before I entered. I guessed you weren't occupied when I found you alone."

_And since I am a tool completely at your disposal now, it didn't even occur to you to announce your coming, _she thought. But this time the right words came out. "I am not. What's the matter?"

Kaleb was more pleased than he should be to get an annoyed reaction from her. It was when he caught her off guard that she didn't have time to pull up her façade of Silence. That hint of a steely spine, of angry stubbornness, it was – tempting. It shouldn't have been. It was a lack of control, a flaw. "I want you to do another demonstration of your projective empathy."

"Of course. What's the subjects race?" So fast she was all back-to-business – the perfect Psy once again.

"Is that important?"

"Yes. Psy are the easiest to influence, then humans. Changelings are hardest."

"Psy are easiest? What about our shields?"

"These days, shields are telepathic or telekinetic, not empathic. And most Psy are Silent. If they have anything like emotional shielding, it is to prevent emotions from getting out. They are immune to their own feelings but they have never had the need to shield against projection from the outside. They probably wouldn't have needed it before Silence. My kind weren't weapons back then." The faintest hint of regret had entered her voice at the last words.

The projection had once been used to heal the soul, as well as any other empathic quality. It had been the only way that could cure the people who were so hurt or sick they'd forgotten how to feel anything good. Projecting empaths had been able to give it back to them; make them remember happiness, trust or even love. She had learned that from the NetMind, who remembered all of the Nets history. But her race had long forgotten, maybe too long.

"Humans and changelings can counteract the projection with their own emotions. They know when a feeling is not their own and they have learned not to act on what they feel every time. But devoid of feelings Psy are as susceptible to it as a rehabilitated mind is to telepathy. If you no longer think yourself, it's easy to place thoughts in your mind. If you don't feel, it's easy to do the same with emotion."

So that was why the effect of what she had shown him seemed so strong. And she'd practically told him that there was nothing he could do against it. "Could a Psy learn to recognize the projection?"

Alja knew at once that this was a dangerous topic. He wouldn't take it well to learn that he was completely helpless against her powers. So she'd give him what she could. It wasn't much. "You may have noticed that your conditioning won't warn you when I project. That is because projected emotions are not your own. You feel them, but the Protocol doesn't recognize them. It will not react in any way at all. So as long as you are fully Silent you'd just need to realize that you are feeling at all, that would be your indicator for a projection. Then you try not to act on it. But as Psy generally have no experience with that, never needing to reign in emotions, they are very sensible to the influence of projected emotions."

Yes, the night in the gym he'd learned enough to believe that. Still there was the question, why she triggered dissonance in him ever since he'd met her. But then again, his conditioning was not like the usual Protocol, especially not the dissonance parts. When he had removed his initial conditioning he had realized that his trainers had installed fail-safes that would short circuit his powers if he ever felt too strongly. And not only that, his powers would turn against him. They would physically and psychically hurt him or even kill him if he fully gave in to emotion. He had removed all those traps and blocks and relied on the pain and on a very exceptional addition constructed by himself to keep him in check. They would warn him and remind him to stay in control of any emotional impulse that might ever arise, but he would not tolerate to be constricted or even crippled by his conditioning. He had however set the threshold for the pain reaction as strict as possible. Maybe he had inadvertently built in a detection mechanism for projection.

"Alright. Then we should start the demonstration so I can get a better idea of it. Would you allow a teleport to my office? I haven't had practice with your physical shields so far."

"Of course. Just try. I'll flex the shields." She rose and stepped around her desk. He sensed the liquid consistence of her outer shields as she came closer and found himself captivated by the sensation: Water flowing in various directions, soft, soothing.

Another improper reaction. He should have been used to it since their sparring match.

He reached out with his Tk to include her into the teleport. The liquid texture of her shields shifted the instant he touched them. It was just enough to do exactly the teleport but nothing more. It was as if she'd only opened a channel for the specific action, while her shields stayed otherwise airtight.

"So what about the subjects race?" she asked again when they stood in the middle of his office a moment later.

"Psy."

"Then it shouldn't be too hard. Is he or she coming here?" She looked around the empty room, hoping she wouldn't have to harm whoever he had chosen for the experiment.

"He is already here." Kaleb realized he shouldn't be so keen to discountenance her. It was supposed to be a systematic strategy to get behind her cool façade. Yet his conditioning seemed ready to slash out once more.

"You?!" He didn't seem to grab the concept of her powers at all. She'd just told him how dangerous she was to Silent Psy, afraid of how he might react to the threat of being exposed to her using her powers on him. And now he wanted her to do exactly that. He obviously didn't believe anyone could get to him. God, how arrogant could someone be? Maybe she wouldn't mind to harm the subject a little after all.

"It's the logical way to proceed – the only way to get unbiased information about your skills."

She tried to reason one last time. "This may compromise your conditioning."

"My conditioning is absolutely intact." At least it had been until the moment he had met this mysterious Arrow. "And you said it won't react anyway. In what way should it impair the Protocol?"

How many inconvenient facts did she have to reveal until he let it go? "It won't react, but there is a paradox effect: On prolonged exposure the Protocol will fail, because your mind gets used to not reacting to emotions. We learned that when some of my trainers had trouble with their conditioning after working with me as a child. My ability doesn't break Silence; it melts it away, very slowly but barely reversible once it's done."

His voice turned even icier as usual, when he answered. And his words sent a chill creeping up her spine. "You don't want to melt mine. There is nothing that could be called 'good' left of me. I am one of the monsters Silence was created to cage. – So take care not to 'prolong' the exposure."

With that he shrugged out of his jacket, threw it over a nearby chair and leaned back against his desk. His arms came up to cross before his chest in a gesture of presumptuous relaxation. He'd never show that he wasn't a hundred percent sure of what he was doing right now. So he focused a dominant gaze on her.

He was just impossible, Alja thought. Had he felt, she'd have diagnosed him a thrill-seeker. Probably that kind of arrogance came with so much power.

_Maybe you should take a leaf out of his book then. _The wicked little voice of temptation again. But she couldn't afford to get instable just now. She checked her behavioral controls. Most of them were holding – yet. Still she would rather not have given another demonstration of her ability. This was only going to lead to more trouble, especially since she was increasingly instable and additionally imbalanced by his presence yet again. She knew the urge to provoke him came from the visceral need to make him react emotionally to her, as she did to him. But that primitive part of her didn't understand that his reaction – if she ever got one – wasn't going to be anything she wanted to face. Even if she couldn't bring herself to believe what he'd said about being a monster underneath his Silence.

She took a deep breath, focusing every ounce of her control to get her tone as businesslike as possible. "Alright, what would you like me to project?"

"You're the expert. I am sure you'll pick something interesting."

He was mocking her.

He even gave her a slow sarcastic smile. It was fake for sure. But hell, he looked gorgeous. She felt liquid heat flare up low in her abdomen, closely followed by angry frustration about his insolent behavior and her irrational response to it. She was Psy, a powerful one and in full control of her abilities. And he had pressured her, tried to stress her out the whole time as if she was a bloody apprentice. She'd do a projection as asked and let him deal with the consequences. She reached out with her psychic senses to direct the projection more precise than the last time. Then she realized there was not a single mind in the range of her perception. Probably Kaleb had ordered them away via Tp before attempting the experiment. Playing it safe after all.

When he raised an eyebrow as if to ask, whether she had already started, it struck her that she hadn't even chosen what she wanted to project.

_Something interesting._

Well, she knew an interesting sensation that had come easy enough to her during the last days: sexual attraction.

_I bet you're not used to falling for female charms, _she thought with wicked anticipation.

She closed the distance between them until she stood just one step away from him and looked right into those oh-so-Silent eyes that were watching her expectantly. Then she let the sensations come: The pull in her chest whenever she was close to him, the need to touch the smooth planes of his face and the wish that formed when her eyes traced the sensual curve of his lips. Keeping the feelings superficial at first, she started to project.

No reaction.

Of course a man of his power and self-control would not be influenced that easily in his behavior, no matter how receptive his Silent self was to her skills.

Frustrating.

She strengthened the projection just a small bit to see if she could elicit at least a little change in his expression. Finally his eyes seemed to widen just a fraction.

Then he moved so fast and unexpected, she had no time to react. In a split second he had closed the last bit of distance between them. His hands were at the sides of her head, pulling her close, his lips pressing on hers.

A flood of sensation washed over her, draining away every chance of coherent thought. He was all heat and intensity to her senses, even better than she could have dreamt it. It was instinct to inhale his scent of electrified air and darkness, let herself drown in it.

Then she felt his tongue brush against the seam of her lips and she opened up instinctively. The taste of him was exhilarating; she'd never experienced anything like it. The sensation shot through her nerves sizzling like an electric shock, igniting every cell in her body, including those neurons that had been reluctant to react to any touch on an emotional level. For a moment, time seemed to have stopped. Then reason kicked in and she could pull away.

He let her go the same instant and his expression could be described as nothing but surprise. No, she had seen something else sweep across his face, but it was gone before she could figure out what it had been.

She looked at him in shock, speechless for a second. But she wouldn't have made it through the Arrow training if she wasn't able to catch herself just as fast as she had lost it.

"I am sorry. That effect was not intended. – It was only a minor projection. This should not have happened." The intended phrases formed but her voice cracked.

He just stared at her, incapable of processing what he'd just done. His heart was racing in spite of not having done anything physically challenging.

"It is possible that I am a little instable after the stress of the last days. The fine-tuning of the projection might have been slightly off." She stammered the words out and only when she heard them, did she notice that this explanation only made her situation worse. So she went mute. The only sound was her heart pounding a jagged drumbeat in her ears.

Mere seconds that felt like hours passed before Kaleb cleared his throat and his own face iced over completely again. When he spoke, his voice was icily calm and polite with only the faintest hint of huskiness.

"That was actually impressive. Thank you. I think this is enough for now. I will think about the implications and let you know, when I have further need of your abilities."

The dismissal was as clear as it was welcome. She turned on her heel and pulled the tattered scraps of her control together hard, not to storm out of the room.


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19**

Ming knew his first attempt to contain the situation had failed. The rabbit should have left its hole by now. He wouldn't even have been surprised by a direct contacting from Kaleb. The younger Councilor must have found out enough to get suspicious and it would have been logical to ask the former leader of the Arrow Squad in this particular case, even if he didn't trust him otherwise. However, nothing significant had happened. Apparently Alja Dardo still was where the Squad had planted her.

That woman was the second cardinal that had escaped his grip. And he wasn't yet sure which one was worse. She was a perfect target for Pure Psy if he couldn't find a more covered way to get rid of her. But Henry's diminished army of fanatics wasn't ready to pull an op like that. If only he'd discovered her survival earlier. He would have had the back-up of the whole Council to eliminate her. But in this case not all was lost. Maybe it was time he talked to some of his other former fellow Councilors.


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20**

Alone in his office Kaleb tried to get a grip on what had just happened. One moment he'd been waiting for Alja to start the projection, just considering that – contrary to his initial assessment – maybe her features were not so mediocre at all. The next moment there had been nothing in the world but the fierce desire to touch her, to have his mouth on hers, to taste her.

He hadn't even thought about resisting it. And the experience was beyond anything he could have ever imagined. If this was what emotions were, he could understand the feeling races much better now. The sensation of the soft, warm skin of her face was still burning on his palms and that vibrant scent of flowers and rain and pure _life_ still seemed to linger in the air. How could she smell of something so vividly alive? As an Arrow she was death on two legs – two long, well-shaped legs, he admitted to himself. And her lips! That feminine softness, he'd never have expected from that hard-bitten soldier. But she had melted under his mouth with a taste that was pure temptation. He just had craved for more. And he hadn't known before that his mind was capable to produce such detailed imagination of exactly how much _more _he wanted. It had created images of her strong, beautiful body, naked, tangled with his, glistening with sweat. He had wished he could put his hands on that skin all over her; feel her in places he had never desired to touch a woman before –

Then dissonance had hit. Hard.

The pain had come so suddenly he was completely taken aback by it. And it had been accompanied by his special addition to the conditioning that only occurred when he was perilously close to losing control and the pain no longer held him in check. The images the Protocol had sent flashing through his mind had been enough to snap him out of it.

He had tied the memories of his first murder to the dissonance: pictures of a female corpse, broken and twisted by his powers. Her lifeless face a reminder of what awaited him when he broke Silence and of the ones he betrayed by giving in to the temptation of that beautiful Arrow – a woman that came right from the corrupt system he wanted to destroy.

No, not exactly, if the tale about her parents was true. But Alja had grown up in that system, had thrived in its shadows. And she had blood on her hands. Not as much as him, but she wasn't innocent. Contrary to the women he had failed to save and the one that was still out there – the only one who held his loyalty.

He reached inside his pocket and closed his hand around the small platinum charm he always carried with him. _One person, there must be one person who you do not want to die? _Judd's words, when the Ghost had declared he didn't care for the life of the innocents that would die if the Council collapsed without preparation. The assassin had also told him to consider this one life, whenever he made a decision. He had. It had been the one thing that had kept him from annihilating the whole Council and countless lives with it.

Yes, there was one Psy who did not deserve to die, the picture of her mind branded into his brain. If he could only find _Her_, that pure mind, his personal sun. He had learned everything the NetMind had shown him about her by heart. The signature of her extraordinary mind was something a part of his brain always scanned for in the background. He was sure he'd recognize her if he ever got as much as a glimpse of her. And even if he didn't allow himself the feeling, he knew what she was to him. Hope. His last Hope. Without _Her_ he'd have taken a violent path long ago. He would have destroyed the corrupt Council superstructure with a single, violent surge of his powers, not caring for the life of millions who would die in the psychic shockwave this would create. _She_ was the sole reason he hadn't lost the last remnants of his belief that there might be something truly good somewhere out there. Though she would probably run screaming if he ever got near her, because he was evil – an evil only allowed to exist to root out other evil. But he had sworn to find _Her_.

And now he let himself be distracted from that task by Alja. An Arrow. An insidious weapon, designed to sabotage Silence. Again his thoughts seemed to be drawn to her without his consent. At the sheer memory of her he could feel his conditioning ready to kick in. He was surprised that it – disturbed him, because it kept him from further analyzing what had happened between him and Alja. And he wanted to do that very much.

Ever since he'd secretly watched Judd and Sienna Lauren at some kind of social event deep in the heart of the SnowDancer wolves' territory he had been tempted by emotion. Those two belonged to a very small group of Psy who had defected from the Net and found refuge with the major wolf pack in California. Judd had powers very much like his own. Only that his fellow rebel had missed the leap into cardinal status. And Sienna Lauren was a cardinal X-Psy, a designation so lethal that those who had it usually didn't survive into adulthood. But both of them had broken Silence in the most final way by mating with changelings. And yet they'd walked out not only sane, but seemingly more stable than ever. And what he'd experienced with Alja might just drive him over the edge; make him risk everything he had built his life on, just to have more – more of her.

At that moment he perceived a small stinging pain in the palm of his hand. He pulled it out to see that he had fisted his hand so hard that the spikes of the small star had cut into his skin deep enough to draw blood. He was losing control. And even worse: a part of him no longer cared.

He needed to think, needed to file through everything he knew to see if there were any hidden snares in this. But he found it hard to follow the clear trains of thought his mind usually worked with. And he definitely needed to calm down his physical reactions. Maybe it would help to steam off some of the wild energy Alja had set free in his body. He telepathed to Delenko, ordering him to make sure the personnel was back in the building and to insure that this very extraordinary woman stayed where she was. Then he teleported out in the middle of the working day to take a run.

* * *

Alja could have slapped herself. Now she had done it. She had proven without a doubt that she was beyond flawed and a danger to every Silent Psy in her vicinity. Back in her quarters she started pacing back and forth between the walls like a trapped animal. There was no use to act Silent any longer. She had fucked it up completely.

She contemplated contacting Aden and Vasic to get her out of here immediately before Kaleb decided she was better off dead – deal or not. But she wouldn't pull any of her fellow Arrows into this mess she had created. And running away alone was as much an option as it had been the last time she'd thought about it. Distraught she realized that this was the second time she had brought herself in such a situation, all because the man just made her lose control every time they met. Only this time it was worse.

_Oh come on. He won't kill you. You have a deal. He wanted you to project. He only got what he wanted. It was nothing but an experiment for him._ She was so confused she didn't even notice that the thought came not from her own mental voice but from that wicked temptation she hid so deep inside her mind.

But it was right: She remembered his last words to her: _I'll let you know, when I have further need of your abilities._ She could have screamed at the ice in his voice. He had kissed the sense out of her seconds before and then he had wiped it away, as if it was a minor incident in the everyday schedule. And he had made it very clear, that she was just an object to his use that had maybe gotten even more interesting because someone else with power wanted it gone. The man really was a cold bastard and expecting anything else even for a fleeting moment was just a product of her own stupidity.

_That's what you get for meddling with someone's emotions._ _They won't feel for you if you don't make them! But you're too good to do that, aren't you? Good thing I can take care of what you want. _The little voice wouldn't be silenced today.

_I didn't want this. I am here to do a job, not to spin out of control because of some hormonal reactions._

_Oh yeah you're so Psy, so controlled. And still making yourself believe that honor and destiny shit. You didn't stay because of the NetMind or some self-imposed duty. You stayed because you want that man. And there's nothing wrong with that. You can have him, if you stop being such a fucking hypocrite about your powers. _

_You did this! You made me provoke him! You pushed me to make him kiss me! _Too late Alja realized that she was no longer thinking with one mental voice. She was losing it after all. Her behavioral controls had failed without her notice. And the part of her that had acted was the one she usually had to suppress to survive in this world of cold Silence. It was her dark part, the one that was no longer fully sane. And yet it was right again: She had never been so tempted to use her powers than when Kaleb had kissed her. She still ached for more of that sensation that had all but exploded inside her. But she'd never use her projection that way. _I don't need this. Go away. _She tried to force the other voice down. It didn't work.

_This is how you reward me? I took the bad, the evil and the violence for you. Remember? I keep their voices at bay, because you cannot bear them. I am the strong one. You won't silence me this time. _That insidious little voice was now speaking with a strangely cold, yet angry tone that promised more darkness to come.

_No you're nothing on your own. You're just a part of me. We are the same. _"There is no you. Just me." She spoke the last words out loud, hoping to convince herself, failing once more.

_Oh yes. I am a part of you. I am the part that holds what you want and also what you fear. But you're splitting me off, because you're weak. You do just the same what all Psy do. Severing everything you can't stand and denying it ever existed. But you won't get rid of me! – Or do you think you can take their voices, their pain, their deaths? Are you ready to face the ones you murdered?_

She felt nauseating fear creep up inside her. She was not ready to face what she'd done. She'd never be. Yet she couldn't do what the rest of her race did. She couldn't allow herself to split off a part of her. It was what had brought her people to breaking point. If she did the same, there was no hope left for any of them.

"I have to and I will take it. There is only one _me_," she whispered. Then she dived deep into her mind to get to the part she had unconsciously separated from her self and let the madness wash over her.

At first there were only whispers: the reproachful voices of her victims closing in on her, talking about betrayal, pressing her to remember what she'd sworn never to forget: She had taken lives. Seven lives, seven deaths. And all of them were there, inside her.

Then the memories crashed in on her with merciless violence. She dropped to her knees in front of the bed burying her face in the covers to muffle her screams as her soul was pierced by terror, pain and a desperation one could only feel in the face of certain death. She was torn apart again and again – limb from limb, body from soul. And every time it stopped, it started again. And again. And again. Each time with a different emotional flavor. Each live had been different, each death had been. And she had to relive all of them. It seemed the agony would never end.

By the time those first waves were ebbing away her throat was raw and her body shaking uncontrollably. She turned around to lean against the bed and gasp for air partially pulling the covers with her because her hands had cramped to rigid fists in them.

But she knew it wasn't over.

What followed next was the guilt – gut-wrenching guilt that made her think her chest might literally explode any moment. She forced her eyes wide open and tried to focus on something, anchor herself on something that would keep her connected to the outside world. The dull, gray box that was supposed to be her home now offered no such thing and soon she felt her vision blacken out at the edges.

No! She couldn't fall inside her mind completely. If she did now she'd never get out. She tried to get up but the moment she got to her feet, dizziness almost knocked her over again. Then her ears started ringing. Her auditory perception was gone; her sense of balance soon after and with it came an overwhelming nausea. Somehow she half staggered, half crawled to the bathroom barely reaching it before the retching started. She groped about, trying to hold herself upright but her sweat-slick hands kept slipping at the rim of the toilet bowl. She tried to keep focused on her tactile perception at least but the raw storm of bloodcurdling emotions and memories kept pulling her under. And slowly her whole body went numb, letting her slide deeper and deeper into the horror inside her. Some time that felt like an eternity later her survival instinct finally kicked in and everything stopped.


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter 21**

When Alja regained consciousness it was to find herself curled up in a fetal position on the hard, cold tiles of the bathroom floor. Her clothes were soaking wet with cold sweat and partly splattered with vomit. Literally every part of her body was sore. It barely registered. The echoes the episode had left inside her soul were far worse than those inside her body. Death reverberated in every part of it, draining away all warmth, all hope, all that was good.

She was trembling so hard it took her ten minutes to get to a sitting position. From there she was able to grab a towel from the rail and mop up the worst of the mess she'd left on the floor. Then she crawled into the shower and let the hot water pour over her until the acrid stench was gone and she felt something close to warm. After what felt like an eternity she was finally able to get up to take a proper shower. Then she dressed and removed all the evidence of her breakdown. Only then she realized that it was getting dark outside. She must have been out for hours. She only hoped Kaleb had been busy enough not to notice her drop-out at this unusual time.

She found some bottles of mineral infused water in her nutrition cupboard and forced two of them down. She knew she needed food too, but she doubted that any of the nutrition bars would stay down. Sleep was also impossible. The moment she drifted off she'd be helplessly exposed to her subconscious. And that was no place she wanted to go anytime soon. Even awake faint voices still whispered in the back of her head. How could she have dared to forget them for even a single second?

They were wearing her psyche down gradually, but they were also the indicator that she was no longer splitting off parts of her self completely. Yet she also knew she hadn't fully united that dark part of her mind to her self. If she had, she'd be insane by now. She had only tied it to her conscious control tight enough that it shouldn't act without her notice again. She knew she was walking a fine line, but she had to stay sane long enough to complete the work she'd been born for. She just needed more time. It was all she could hope for right now.

So she lay down on the bed to relax her body as good as possible and played little mental games to prevent falling asleep or thinking of the darkness that lay inside her again. Only her thoughts kept circling right back to Kaleb – this man of ice and rock who for one single moment had been pure heat, passion and electrifying sensation.

But how after all this horror could she still think only of him – of the pleasure she'd felt in that brief, stolen moment when he'd kissed her? It didn't matter right now, because – paradox as it might be – those memories also kept the darkness at bay.


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter 22**

Ming had arranged an appointment with Tatiana as soon as possible and waited for her in her Sydney office. Although they did not belong to opposing factions of the split Council she was not pleased to see him. She tried to keep out of the war games the others had initiated as far as she could, having her own plans to gain more power. "What was so important that you came here in person?" she asked at entering the room.

"I need to talk to you about a sensible Council matter."

"I wasn't aware such matters still exist." The Council was no longer operating as a unit after all.

"There is an individual that may turn out problematic for all of us – us meaning the Councilors who hold on to the Protocol." Adherence to Silence was the one thing that united Ming, Tatiana, Shoshanna and the deceased Henry.

"Sienna Lauren is your mess. Leave me out of it."

"I am not talking about Sienna, although she might become a problem again. I'm talking about a far bigger threat."

Tatiana's mind worked through the possible meanings of his words. She found she didn't have any other idea whom he was talking about. "If it has impact on all of us, you can only be talking of another Councilor."

"No but the person I am talking about may soon gain the considerable resources of a Councilor."

That finally got her interest. "Stop beating around the bush and tell me what's going on."

And Ming spoke of a girl who should have died decades ago.

"That is impossible! Someone with her powers cannot exist." But Tatiana knew well that they had no way of knowing what heritage the Forgotten passed on.

"Yet she does and she probably has Kaleb under her influence."

Then he showed her what he was able to extract from Marino Ghetty's mind before the man had used the last resort strategy of the Arrows and blown his own brain to pieces.

"She could take over the Net with her powers and Kaleb's resources." Even fully Silent a hint of shock invaded Tatiana's voice.

"Now you understand whatever our individual goals are, we have to work together on this one. There is no chance for any of us to hold on to our power without Silence."

"I assume you have already spoken to Shoshanna about this."

"She agreed to my plans."

"Alright, an alliance until this is done. After that…" She didn't need to finish the sentence. He knew they'd be fair game to each other the moment their common goal was reached. "What about Kaleb?" After her failed attempt to take down the other Councilors Tatiana had waited to let the dust settle but she had not given up on the idea that the Net could one day be hers alone. And Kaleb was her fiercest adversary.

"He is a problem now. But if things are as I suspect them to be he will no longer be a problem once she's gone. He might even align with our goal of keeping Silence after that. We only have to get to her."

Not the answer Tatiana had hoped for. But they'd see. Maybe there was a way to kill two birds with one stone and get rid of Kaleb too. "What's your idea?"

"Basically it's centered on the interesting things you can do to shields."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." She had made a point to hide her most lethal ability. To this day there were only rumors and myths about her shield-breaking skills.

"I know you're testing _my _shields now and then," Ming answered coolly. He had no intention to play along with her attempt of feigned ignorance. "We all have our ways to monitor the others. That's not the point now. What we need now is someone who can disrupt cardinal shielding."


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter 23**

By the time the sun rose the next morning Kaleb had patched up his conditioning again and thought through all eventualities. If what Alja had told him about the projection was true, his conditioning should not have reacted at all. It shouldn't have recognized the emotion. Except if the feeling had been his own, which was highly unlikely. He'd never reacted to women in that way before. Chances were Alja was a trap and whoever had set her up wanted to make him believe he really was attracted to her. Tempt him to break Silence.

The downfall of a powerful man caused by a beautiful woman was such an old story and yet it had worked so often throughout history. Only that it was the last strategy he'd have expected to be played against him. This only made it more ingenious – and also incredibly stupid: Because whoever had set this trap obviously didn't know it was a very bad idea to destabilize his Silence. This was odd, because he was sure all his former fellow Councilors had at least a good guess at the extent of his powers and knew that there was very little chance to stop him once he lost control. And none of them had ever been known to use emotion in their strategies. Silence was their basis of power after all.

Silence.

Yes, there was one group who would try to fight fire with fire:

Pure Psy.

But as far as his information went they lacked the skills to pull off something big enough to involve the Arrow Squad and more important, they lacked the reason to do it. At least until the moment Alja had showed up he had never given the slightest hint that he wasn't backing Silence as hard as any other Councilor with the will to retain his power. Except for a fleeting alliance with Nikita who all but publicly admitted she no longer stood in favor of the Protocol. But that wouldn't be enough to put him on their blacklist. Or maybe it was. Pure Psy was fanatic after all.

Or could Alja truly be innocent? Kaleb had seen enough of evil to know she did not seem like it. On the contrary: Something about her made her seem worth protecting. Then again, evil came in various disguises.

As long as there was a chance that all of this was a trap he should keep away from her. He wasn't arrogant enough not to have learned by now that he had probably not much to oppose her particular skillset, but maybe it was time that he practiced holding up Silence against such powers. And maybe he was just looking for excuses. There were so many reasons why he should not get into any more contact with her.

Still he couldn't let her go.

But no, there was only one reason for that: She had become something he wanted. And Kaleb Krychek was a man used to getting what he wanted, even at high costs. Today he'd find out if her skills were worth it, and if they were he'd hunt her down just like any prey he'd ever set his sights on, on his way to ultimate power. It was easy to believe it was that simple with his newly repaired Silence.

He didn't even look up when she entered his office at his telepathic command, determined not to give her any more attention than necessary.

"You've got something for me to do?" was all she said, her voice unusually flat even for a Psy.

"Yes, some shield work, but first I wanted to talk to you about yesterday's – demonstration." The shortest hesitation before the last word. His eyes stayed focused on the extendable computer screen on his desk.

Alja started talking before he could continue.

"I apologize again for letting the situation get out of hand. I am usually in full control of my abilities. I suppose the events of the last days have emotionally imbalanced me. But I understand if you find me too erratic or unstable. I could still leave… "

Trying to run, again? Kaleb thought. Interesting. But not acceptable. He cut her off at once. "We have a deal and so far you broke none of its conditions. I believe you can still do your work here. I don't find my conditioning impaired in any way by your demonstration. – You said you have strategies to get a grip on your emotional lapses. Use them and warn me if you are losing control again." The coldest matter-of-fact tone.

"I will. Can you spare me for one day sometime soon?" There was no way she could keep functioning on any level if she didn't get some emotional support. After last night she was choking on the dark emotions inside her that were screaming to be soothed by what she only referred to as human contact. She could only hope it would be enough.

About to reply Kaleb finally looked up.

And all his Silent resolve shot to smithereens.

Alja looked like she'd been dragged through hell. He thought she might pass out any moment in spite of the tough soldier attitude she displayed otherwise. She was as white as paper and her eyes were red and swollen, with dark shadows down to her cheeks. The night-sky in them was an abyss crashing in on itself today. And suddenly Kaleb was seized hard by an overwhelming urge to fight, fight whatever had done this to her. No one was allowed to hurt her like that. She was his to protect.

"What happened to you?" He forced the words to sound calm, ignoring the dissonance that flared up once again.

Alja knew that she looked more than exhausted. She'd just expected Kaleb wouldn't care as long as she showed up to do her work. The truth was she hadn't thought about much at all since her breakdown. She was just functioning on autopilot to hold up the façade that was crucial to her survival. "I had a little lack of sleep lately. I'll compensate within a few days."

"You don't look like it. You should see an M-Psy." He couldn't hold her gaze any longer. Those star-crash eyes were triggering responses deep inside him that shattered all his attempts to keep his distance, to keep his Silence.

"Really it's nothing serious." She couldn't admit how close she was to breaking point. She had a task to fulfill and she would not falter until it was done. Seeing an M-Psy now would only mean more trouble. And she was running out of time already.

"You could have Aden if you don't trust one of my men with your health." Someone had to take care of her. Pain spearing through his brain. Irrelevant. Alja had to stop hurting.

"I am a trained Arrow, capable of assessing my health status. Medical treatment is not necessary at the moment." She squared her shoulders, her figure turning rigid when she spoke.

So proud. So stubborn. It was infuriating, but also – appealing. Kaleb's whole body tensed in an attempt to stop getting up and pull her into his arms, make sure she was alright. More pain spreading along his nerves. He ignored it again. That was when he saw something else that raised another red flag in his mind. She didn't even seem to notice but…"Alja, your nose is bleeding."

At the same moment she felt the single drop of blood that was slowly running towards her lips. Had she been in any other condition she would have realized that her specious excuses would not lead her anywhere. "I probably pushed myself too hard in the gym and strained some blood vessels." It didn't help that Kaleb made her blood run faster by getting up and walking around the table to stand right in front of her. A paper tissue appeared in his hand out of thin air. He held it out for her but withdrew his hand when she reached out for it. As a consequence she took a small involuntary step that brought her even closer to him. So close that she half feared half hoped their bodies would touch if she breathed in too deep. Definitively too close for usual Psy interaction. But Kaleb didn't increase the distance when he spoke.

"How long do you want to play this game? You didn't leave your quarters since yesterday." She couldn't have trained in the gym. And with a Psy, nosebleeds were almost always a sign of psychic powers deteriorating. "Was it the strength of the projection? Is this some kind of empathic flame-out?" Whoever had set her up to destabilize his Silence had probably underestimated the amount of power it took. But no, he refused that suspicion to be true, accepting another burst of pain in his head.

"No, it's really just some stress due to the emotional build-up after the events of the last days." And she experienced another 'emotional build-up' in a very different area right now. His scent of electrified air and darkness making her want to crawl right into him, forget her own darkness.

_That's it: I'm truly going insane. _She thought. "Although I admit, I will possibly need the human contact now to release some emotional tension. So if you can give me a day off to meet some human acquaintances, I assure you it will not impair my functionality."

Right now he couldn't have cared less about her 'functionality'. She had to get well no matter if she was an enemy set on destroying him. But oh, those suspicions were about to drive him insane. How could he be sure this feeling was his own? Still it was almost impossible to fight the urge to touch her again. "Have your human contact then. But I will take you wherever you need to go and if I find your condition unimproved you'll see Aden the moment you return." His tone told her this point was nonnegotiable. But at last he gave her the tissue which she hastily pressed to her face to conceal the strengthening blood flow.

"Agreed. What about the job you had for me?" Only her Arrow-trained control kept her voice practical and cool as always.

"It can wait until your health status is improved. I'll have Silver clear your schedule for today. Now get some rest and inform me about the time and place of your human contact as soon as you've arranged it."

She wanted to protest again, but he was right: She probably wasn't fit to do whatever a power-hungry Councilor found her useful for. Apart from that there was this tiny, stubborn spark of unreasonable hope that told her it was a good sign Kaleb cared for her well-being.

"It doesn't take much preparation. I could go out tonight. My next contact is in Lithuania, but I guess that doesn't matter much with your preferred mode of transport." As she spoke a little of the heaviness in her features lifted and the weakest smile flew over Alja's lips. Kaleb might have missed it had he not been trying so hard to focus on the rest of her face, rather than those unsettling eyes. He had no idea how to interpret that reaction, but it captivated him all over again.

"Right, you don't need to choose the closest contact, if you have better ones elsewhere."

"No, I'd like to go to Lithuania. I think it's the best choice. Around nine would be a good time." She wanted to see Elizabeta. The waitress was the one who came closest to being a friend among the contacts Alja had kept all over the world for the rare breaks she took on her missions.

"Then we meet at nine tonight. For now let me get you to your quarters." When she drew in a breath to respond, he surprised her by quickly adding: "Yes, I know you're capable of walking yourself, but no one needs to see you in this condition. Agreed?"

That got him another of the tiniest smiles. It caused a strange kind of warmth to unfold deep inside his chest and also reminded him of the sensation those lips had produced when he'd kissed her. And it was absolutely worth the screaming dissonance that raged through his head. If this woman meant to lead him to his downfall he'd probably come willingly.

But not yet.

Handing her another paper tissue he pushed at her shields for the teleport. The next moment she found herself alone in her rooms.

Pressing the fresh tissue to her face she didn't notice that the other one hadn't come with her. She was too occupied trying to get some order into a crackbrained reason that was set on making her think there was hope Kaleb truly cared about her. But it somehow _felt_ like it. Although she hadn't dared, hadn't even thought of testing it with her empathy. She simply didn't _want_ that unreasonable hope to be snuffed out by the radiation of frost she expected to sense from him.

That was not only stupid but dangerous too. However she couldn't help it. And for the first time something other than the deaths inside her or her fateful task threatened to become her biggest problem. How was she supposed to function when – even after her complete breakdown the other day – all she could think about were very physical fantasies of a certain Councilor who probably couldn't even spell the word sensuality? Yet he had made her body come alive when she'd thought sensuality was lost to her forever.

She wanted to peel him out of those annoyingly perfect suits of his, wanted to test the firm muscles of his chest she'd only briefly touched in their sparring match, wanted to stroke her hands over the ridged planes of his abdomen. Heaven have mercy, she wanted to taste him all over! But most of all she wanted to unleash the wild, untamed energy that was Kaleb Krychek under the façade of all this ice. The kind of energy she'd tasted when he'd kissed her. The kind of energy that had the potential to chase away the echoes of death inside her.


	24. Chapter 24

**Chapter 24**

"On first glance I can't see anything special. No infection, no drugs. Maybe I could say more, if I had the corpse."

The man in the neat lab coat was one of the best M-Psy in the world right after Ashaya Aleine. He couldn't see down to the DNA level like the defected scientist. But he could analyze the composition of any biological tissue or fluid faster and more accurate than most scanners. Nothing less would have done for Kaleb Krychek – who was slightly surprised by the man's answer to his request.

"The corpse?" he asked showing none of his surprise.

"Of the woman whose blood is on that tissue."

Kaleb just raised his eyebrows in incomprehension.

"Oh, I see. You didn't know she's dead."

"No, that is indeed new to me. How can you be sure?"

"The hormonal levels in this blood indicate serious stress or trauma. The cortisol levels alone are alarming. And then there are certain endorphins that are almost exclusively released when someone dies. The combination suggests a very violent death."

"You said there was nothing special." Kaleb felt a wave of scorching impatience at the obvious incompetence of his best M-Psy. His blood had started to race at the suggestion of Alja being dead even though he could sense her mind unmoving in her rooms. He had kept a psychic eye on her ever since this morning. Although his medic was wrong about her being dead, when he took the tissue from her, she hadn't seemed alive in every way either.

"I apologize. I assumed you already knew the condition of the subject. I can have a closer look at it if you give me more time."

"No that's enough for now." Kaleb took the tissue out of the man's hands before he could even react. Whatever else Alja hid was his to uncover. No one else had the right to know. Although he had expected the result to shed at least some light on what was happening between Alja and him. Give him a clue whether she was destabilizing him on purpose or not. Instead it only made him worry more about her. Maybe the other piece of evidence was more promising. "Anything new about the head?" he asked, referring to Marino Ghetty's head that was being processed in the same lab.

"The brain tissue is mostly destroyed. It looks like someone tried to take something out of his mind via aggressive Tp."

"Tried?"

"I can't be sure, but from the spread of the damage I'd say it was a self-destructive mechanism similar to those used by certain branches of our armed forces in case of capture." Branches like the Arrow Squad. The new question was: What kind of knowledge had Marino Ghetty died to protect?

"That's all for now. Thank you."

The man in the lab-coat blinked and was alone again. He returned to his usual work without hesitation. Working for the Councilor he was used to the strangest requests.


	25. Chapter 25

**Chapter 25**

By the time evening drew near Alja had at least managed to meditate a while and do a very gentle Yoga practice in her rooms. As a result her mind was slightly calmer and her body a little less sore. Still both were humming with anticipation to be close to Kaleb once again.

She felt the telepathic knock two minutes before the appointed time.

_Are you ready to go?_ His telepathic voice was crystal clear as always.

_Yes. I was about to leave my quarters. _

_Stay there. I'll come to you. _

He teleported to her a second later. This time he made sure to steer clear of her shield radius. When he came in she was standing in front of her dresser inspecting her face in a small mirror that was placed on top of it. When she turned he saw that she had just put her contacts in. Even without their crashing night-sky her eyes looked somehow haunted. But that wasn't all. Although everything she'd changed about her appearance was an old jeans jacket instead of the leather synth she usually wore, she seemed human. And a female human mind was all he could sense in the room.

Alja began to speak in the lightest of tones, deliberately trying to surprise him with her appearance. "Oh hey, didn't think you'd be so fast. Gimme a sec. I'm almost ready."

All he gave her was a stern look

"Don't look at me like that. I'm supposed to be human, remember?" An ironic smile spread over her features. This was such a good excuse to let down that ever chilling Psy façade she seemed unable to hold up in his presence anyway.

"And you really are convincing," he had to admit. The careless air she'd put on didn't fit the worn out face – yet somehow it fit her. But then within a second her face iced over the way he knew it and she answered in her usual cool, clipped soldier-voice.

"Thank you, sir." Alja forced herself to reign in that teasing streak at once. What did she think to start playing like this with him? She quickly checked if it might have been her dark part acting again. But no, she was one for now, all the darkness simmering low and painful in her soul where it belonged. These were simply her behavioral controls failing, because the chaotic mix of emotions in her just wouldn't be suppressed any longer. She really needed to talk to a sentient being before this got any worse.

_Thank you, sir_. The sudden renewed distance acted like a kick to the guts for Kaleb. He'd gotten used to hearing her say his name. It made him feel that strange warmth, he might be willing to risk everything for. "We agreed on Kaleb, didn't we? There's no need to go back to a formal address."

"Yes sir, Kaleb sir," she replied lightly with a mock salute and her heels clicking together.

And just like that she was all human ease and ironic tone again. He wondered if these quick switches were a sign of extraordinary acting skills or mental deterioration. He was utterly fascinated by her. She was an enigma to be solved, this strange, beautiful creature that just wouldn't fit any parameters he knew. "Now you are acting absurd. Is this necessary?" The faintest shiver of confusion in his voice.

"It's called humor and it's one of the best ways to release emotional tension." _Though I could think of even better ways to do it with you..._ Alja's feelings just went haywire. She was going nuts right in front of the most dangerous man on the planet. She was too provocative, she smiled too often and a thousand other little things she had suppressed all her life, things that had nothing to do with mental degradation. They just were her – or rather who she'd be if she wouldn't have to hide behind Silence anymore.

_You'll die if you ever show just a glimpse of what you truly are. One hint of your emotional nature and you're dead._ It were Ghetty's words again that finally brought her back enough to pull herself together. "We should go now. Will it suffice if I telepath you the location with a few visuals?"

He only nodded but his eyes were intensely focused on her, as if he was trying to see right inside her – trying to figure out what was up with her.

"That is a truck stop," he stated when she'd done the telepathic transmission, his eyebrows raised in an unspoken question.

"Yes, it's the best place to show up whenever you want and stay away for anytime you like without someone starting to ask questions. Still you can discuss rather private matters, without getting in too much contact to other people."

Kaleb needed a moment to file through his knowledge of humans and changelings to fully understand the statement: He had heard members of the feeling races occasionally spilled intimate details to bartenders or the like – a phenomenon mostly attributed to the consumption of alcohol. And perfect for Alja's needs. She'd found a place to get something that was technically impossible for a Psy. She seemed extraordinarily good at finding the perfect niche to survive.

"Oh, I apologize. Of course we cannot teleport into the middle of the parking lot. There's a small grove right next to it that should qualify as an appropriate lock." Another set of images was transmitted accurately to his mind. Of course she'd know how to give him a proper lock. But her erratic behavior constantly let him forget that she was a trained elite soldier.

* * *

When Alja left the grove, Kaleb had teleported her to, she considered what she'd told him. This wasn't just a place where lonely truckers went to drink and get things off their chests because they had no one else to talk to. It was more than that. Liza made the place feel like home for those who didn't see theirs for a long time and – in Alja's case – for those who had no true home at all. The whole place held a deep warmth that had nothing to do with the nice little fireplace that was set in one of the walls. Everything from the old leather sofas in one corner of the room to the collection of old photographs on the walls held the touch of love, of care. Alja hadn't realized before how much she'd missed this: She felt more alive the moment she entered the restaurant that belonged to Liza's husband. Finally being surrounded by people who felt a wide spectrum of different emotions was the necessary antidote for the death she carried inside.

Coming in she did a short telepathic scan of her surroundings.

Clever and well trained, Kaleb thought with appreciation. But she was by far not good enough to detect him. He had teleported back in after he was sure she'd left the grove and now he was standing in the shadows of the parking lot, shadowing minds at a very low frequency to get information about what she was doing. But not Psy minds. He had made sure there were none in the vicinity before he let her enter the house. He was sweeping over the human minds in the room to see to whom Alja would be talking. Then he found a visual of her smiling and waving in the mind of a middle-aged woman who obviously overlooked the room from behind a counter. He linked into the mind with no effort. Human minds posed no barriers to even the lowest telepathy. But he didn't intend to use it on that one. He just wanted to watch, to listen to the woman opposite to her.

"Hey Liza!" Alja called out to her.

"Wow Ally! Haven't seen you in months. Where have you been?"

"Got myself a new job. That kept me busy for a while. Make me a lemon soda?"

"Had a bad time lately too, didn't you? You look like shit! Sure you don't want something stronger?"

"Thank you. That's just what I needed to hear." Alja's voice was tired and yet filled with good-humored sarcasm. "And you know I don't drink, when I have to drive."

"Always glad to be of service," Elizabeta answered with a bright laugh.

Kaleb was at a total loss to understand how this conversation could possibly lead to calming down negative emotions. But the woman was right. Alja looked battered. And it wasn't only the shadows under her eyes. It was also her expression: There was nothing left of the well-controlled Psy. She looked completely human now, her features drawn to tense lines of strain. It made him wonder which of her appearances was real. Outside she seemed to have set up the human façade to blend in with the crowd in the restaurant but now he wasn't so sure, if that was not her true face. Another needle of dissonance spiked at the thought that he did not want her to look so tired, so haunted, so lost.

It no longer surprised him. He'd checked his conditioning and the vault in his mind earlier, after Alja had shattered his defenses so easily this morning. He'd found out that his Silence was fracturing despite all his attempts to prevent it, but not like he'd always expected it to: Not along the cracks he'd sealed for years. This was not the monster trying to break free from its prison. The vault he'd built was still rock solid, the monster calm, because whatever emotions Alja had called awake in the depths of his soul, they had nothing to do with the death, silence and madness of the monster. They were a concept so strange to it that it didn't even stir in his cage. So maybe – just maybe – there was a chance that he could risk loosening the confines of Silence just a little, learn more about the life, the heat Alja was offering to his frozen heart.

"Now come on, why do you look like you've been chewed up and spat out?" Liza continued, drawing his focus away from that dangerous train of thought.

"You know the jobs I do are not always a hundred percent clean. Sometimes it's wearing me off a little."

There was no hesitation. She told an adjusted version of the truth that led the woman to believe Alja was a trucker who did some contraband and maybe drug transports. But she didn't seem to choose her words with such care as she usually did. How much must she be hiding then, when she was with him? Kaleb wondered.

"I always wondered whether the jobs you did were really worth the money." The waitress answered with a worried shake of her head, placing the drink Alja had ordered on the counter.

_She cares for me although she barely knows me_, Alja thought. That was the real reason why she'd always come back here, rather than go to any other fleeting human contacts. Liza had a heart that resonated with something lost and lonely deep in Alja's own chest. It took her only a second to find the right words to get her next sorrow out without betraying any of her secrets. "An old friend of mine died a couple of days ago."

"Oh that's bad. I'm sorry for you. Have you been very close?"

"No not anymore. He was my instructor in my former company. But it wasn't an accident. I suspect it had something to do with the jobs we did back then. You know I never ask too much questions as long as the cash comes in. Turns out I better had in that case."

"Oh darling what have you gotten yourself into now? You think they're after you next?" Real concern colored her voice.

"I think they might be. That's what really freaks me out."

"And you're still out on the road? You need to go into hiding if it's that bad! I can see if I can arrange something for you…" The waitress flipped through various contacts in her mind that might be of use. Kaleb was amazed how many shady figures with definitely criminal potential she turned up. So that was the company his Arrow kept. Somehow he had expected something that was more like the ideals of human behavior that were promoted in their media.

"No it's alright. I think I have someone who is able to protect me for now. I'm just here to forget all this mess for a couple of hours." The truth in those words only dawned on Alja when she had spoken them. She tried to find some piece of mind, some comfort here. But what she really craved was something she could never have.

Liza understood at once and grabbed the next topic that promised a good story. "A mysterious protector. Your life sure turned interesting."

"It's not mysterious at all. My new boss favors workers, who can do their job and keep their mouth shut and as long as I do that, I am safe with him." That was in fact a very precise description of her so called new boss and the deal they'd struck.

"That sounds like you: From the frying pan right into the fire! Sure he's not interested in something else? I mean you're probably doing fine at your job but you're also kinda pretty for a trucker."

"No I'm sure it's not that." The statement was accompanied by a dry and slightly resigned laugh.

Again Liza caught it at once. "Oh but you're interested in him? That's it, eh?"

To Alja it was always surprising how this woman with no psychic abilities and no clue of her true background could read her. So her answer was accompanied by a crooked smile and a shake of her head. "Are you sure you're not Psy? You're reading me too well." And with a sigh she added: "Yeah he's quite hot!"

Kaleb almost lost grip of the mind he was shadowing. He wasn't sure he'd heard right. Had his assassin/shield specialist just called him _hot_? A sudden heat flared up in his body and that fast the dissonance slashed out with a vicious bite of pain. But this was far too interesting to care about his conditioning now. To his luck Liza went on with merciless curiosity.

"Ah now we're getting at it. That's what's bugging you. He's not into you! He got someone else?"

"No, that's not it," Alja admitted reluctantly, feeling blood rise to her cheeks, her behavioral controls unable to stop the reaction. That wasn't where she had intended the conversation to lead. She was here to get some compassion for the losses and fear she'd suffered recently, not to talk about her very inconvenient attraction to someone who was sure as hell the very last being on this planet she should be attracted to.

"Oh come on! You've been coming here for four years and never had any guy stories. Now don't make me beg for the rest of that one!" A disappointed scowl.

"There's no rest really. He's Psy. End of story."

Capital mistake.

Alja realized too late, that for Liza this was clearly not the 'end of the story'. She was just warming up.

"You've _got_ to be kidding me! I always thought you were one to fall for the really bad guys, but a _Psy_?" Liza made the word _Psy_ sound like a particularly disgusting insect.

"I know, I know!" Alja rolled her eyes at the waitress, blushing even more.

Suddenly the other woman got very serious. "Don't do anything stupid, child! We owe their kind nothing. Their whole fucking race is just using us like stupid cattle, raping our minds, manipulating us to do what they want. And your boss – even if he protects you now, he sure as hell won't lose a thought over you, once you're no longer of use to him."

All true. Only that Alja owed _their kind _everything. She couldn't run, couldn't turn away. Although Liza was probably right in her advice even if she didn't know the true story. Kaleb would discard her like so much garbage, when she stopped being an asset. Yet he had cared enough to take her here tonight, which had spared her two six hour hover-truck rides... "I know how to deal with bad guys. I got some skeletons rattling in my closet too."

Kaleb noted that Alja didn't deny the accusations the human made against their race. Why should she? They were all just, especially for him. And he'd never cared. Only that suddenly it mattered, what Alja thought about him.

"Ally, whatever you've done, I'm sure it's not as bad as half the shit an average Psy pulls before breakfast every day. You're nothing like them. You're good at heart. And you don't need to risk your hide for someone like that, just because he's got a nice butt." All seriousness vanishing from her voice again she added with a smug grin "He's got a nice butt, hasn't he?"

"You're impossible! You know that? One second you're going all mom on me and the next you bring on something like that." A smile like a sunrise flashed over Alja's face, removing all heaviness from her features for a second.

"But you're laughing again," Liza retorted.

And Kaleb realized it fit Alja's face perfectly to laugh and smile in such an openly emotional manner. She seemed to like it. And it spoke to him too, in a way he had never experienced. Was this the woman she she'd be if she didn't cloak herself in Silence? Or was it just another clever mask?

"Yeah, you always make me feel better … and yes I saw him in the gym. He's built quite well." Another giggle followed that statement. God, it was good to get that out. Alja only hoped it would be enough to valve the tension that had built up in that section.

"Well I'll admit some of them are quite something to look at. What's he like? Is he as gorgeous as Councilor Krychek?"

Alja almost choked on her drink. Of course the young Councilor was the first man who leapt to mind when talking of attractive, male Psy. But the absurdness and irony of the situation still made her laugh out loud. "Yeah I guess quite like that."

"Wow, I wonder how that man looks out of his suits!" Kaleb was slightly irritated by the thoughts in the mind of the older woman but he was too occupied observing Alja's reaction to care.

"Liza, please! It's embarrassing enough already. I feel like a stupid teenager who's got a crush on her teacher and I'm trying to get over it. And you talking about Councilor Krychek naked is not exactly helping that cause!" But she was laughing despite the shocked exclamation.

That conversation was so _not_, what Kaleb had expected, when Alja had told him about human emotional support. Despite having gone great lengths to learn how to manipulate it, he had to admit there was still very much he wasn't even beginning to understand about emotion.

Having been caught in the conversation he reacted too late to the Psy minds entering the perimeter of his continuous scan. He had just glimpsed them on the edge of his awareness but when he scanned the area more thoroughly they were already gone. Maybe it was just coincidence. He did another scan enlarging the radius. Still there was no one. He set his scans on high alert before he returned to slip in the mind of the waitress to find Alja talking again.

"You know how it is with Psy? How you can never really be yourself around them. How you automatically act less affected just to fit in with them?"

"Oh yeah! You try not to give away what you feel. You don't even dare to think your own thoughts until it makes your skin crawl. God, I'm damn lucky I don't have to deal with them very often."

"With him…" Alja hesitated, pressed her lips together tightly for a moment, drew in a deep breath, before the words all but rushed out of her. "I know this sounds crazy but somehow I can be _more_ myself when I'm with him. Now isn't that fucked up?"

"Oh girl! You really are in deep. If you feel like that for a man it's not gonna go away easily."

And at that moment Alja knew that she _had_ come here to discuss exactly that and she'd known before what the outcome would be. She just hadn't wanted to see.

"Fuck! What am I gonna do now Liza?" she blurted out with a trace of almost panicked desperation.

"Well things change with them Psy. There are rumors that this weird Silence of theirs isn't holding forever. Maybe you can thaw out your Psy one day." A hesitant smile full of warm affection.

"I don't think so Liza. Not that one–" A pause filled with pure, bitter resignation "Not that one. I'll just have to get over it."

Pain. A sudden flash of memory.

A picture.

Soft features. Feathery, blond hair. Lifeless eyes.

Kaleb pulled back out of Liza's mind just in time before his Tp was spinning out of control. The lapse was minuscule, but he had almost crushed the human's mind, when his telepathic hold tightened in an involuntary reaction to Alja's words.

He wanted to shake her for daring to talk about her feelings as if they were some kind of disease that needed to be gotten over or cured. Even if she was right: She shouldn't feel about him the way she'd described. No one who was sane could ever feel like this for a monster. But he wanted her to, needed her too. When she'd admitted she found him attractive it had caused a mix of almost-satisfaction, male pride and strange new desires to spring up. And more than that: He wanted to possess her in a way that was so visceral and so physical it shocked him. It was something he hadn't thought himself capable of until the moment he'd kissed her.

How could he have developed such needs without realizing? And how had he dared to allow himself this betrayal of the one he'd pledged loyalty to? It was just what Psy had known for so long: Emotions destabilized everything. They simply were not to control. And he couldn't allow himself any more slips. Silence was imperative for him. Only there was a good chance he'd already gone too far to return to that state. And no matter how reproachful the dead eyes of a swan changeling stared at him, regret was not one of the emotions Alja stirred in him.

He took a deep breath of the cool night air. Suppressed the forbidden impulses once more. Filed away the image of the dead girl and tried to get his mind clear with cool logic. He knew women were attracted to him. It was something he frequently used in the interaction with the feeling races. But this highly skilled woman, a trained Arrow and a very good actress would not likely to fall for his good looks and false charm. Could she have known he'd observe her? Was this just a clever charade? Or was his paranoia finally getting the best of him? He was so used to not trusting anyone it was second nature to him. But it tore at him that he couldn't trust in anything about Alja.

When he was sure he was back in full control of his abilities he slipped into Liza's mind once more. He found that she had stopped conversing with Alja and was attending to other customers. He gave her a slight telepathic push to make her look in Alja's direction again. She just sat at the counter sipping her soda seemingly lost in thought but somehow also relaxed. Some of the tension had left her face and shoulders.


	26. Chapter 26

**Chapter 26**

When Alja left the restaurant, she thought about what Liza had said to her, when she insisted it made no sense to try and thaw out 'her Psy'.

"That's not who you are. – Christ, Ally I'm really scared for you. But I need to say this: You're not one to keep your head down and let things happen as they will. So don't try. It will only get you into more trouble – if that's possible at all."

Now Alja smiled at the simplicity of it all: She was an empath. She was made to feel, even made to make others feel. How could she ever have considered there was a possibility to evade what she felt for Kaleb? And it had taken a human who didn't even know her background to remind her of that. _So much for the glorious superiority of our race_. She thought dryly.

Yes, it was that simple. Only it wasn't. For her it never was. Because if she no longer ignored the truth of her nature, she had to do something that was beyond dangerous: She had to find out if there was any humanity left in Kaleb – find out if he still had some capability to feel. He had once cared enough to save a stranger – a human. She thought of the sequence the NetMind had shown her. What a convenient excuse for trying to get an emotional response from him. How could she know if she was led by the guidance of her one true friend or her own irresponsible desires? The twisted perverseness of the whole damn thing made her head spin, the darkness in her stir again. But why could it not be both, her own wishes _and_ her duty to the Net? She just had to hope she wasn't tricking herself on this, hope she'd do the right thing. And oh, she had to be careful!

_Just give me courage my friend_ she whispered into the cold wasteland of the PsyNet. A reassuring touch as the NetMind brushed by her.

She took one last look back at the outwardly unimpressive truck stop that was her island of life in this cage of Silence and with a sigh she let go of all visible humanity and pulled up the façade of the ruthless Arrow again. Her feelings would be calmed enough now to appear as she should.

_I'm done. I'll just take a walk through the grove where you left me until you're ready to get me out. _She said to Kaleb via the Net. She didn't know how fast he could come back but hoped he was busy enough so she could spend some more time close to nature, the only place where it was safe for her to indulge in emotion. The moment she had reached the shadows of the trees she stopped to retrieve a small container from one of her jacket pockets and took out the contacts. They worked well enough under daylight conditions but out in the dark she'd be safer with her eyes receiving the full spectrum of light. And if anyone accidentally came close she'd merge with the shadows and the bustling silence of the woods. Apart from that, displaying her cardinal status would help her face a man who threatened to brush away twenty-seven years of practice in appearing the perfect Arrow just by being close to her.

When Alja had crossed the parking lot and disappeared between the trees, Kaleb couldn't fight the urge to teleport the short distance to the grove where they were supposed to meet. He was not going to let her walk around there alone.

_Irrational_! His reason insisted. But reason seemed to be no longer the sole dominant part of his mind. There was another part that demanded to keep her close.

The woman who greeted him with the curt nod of a soldier was very different from the one he had seen through the eyes of the human waitress. She was all Psy again, all of the warmth, the carelessness gone. Her desperation, her doubts contained behind a façade of Silence that was not only 'adjusted' as she'd once told him. It was pure fake as he knew now. In the dim light only a few flecks of light in her eyes told him she no longer wore her contacts, reminding him that he was dealing with another cardinal. Probably not as dangerous as himself, but harder to evaluate than any other he'd encountered on his quest for power.

And all he wanted to do was touch her.

"You were fast." Her icy voice snapped his thoughts back from the direction they so persistently strayed to nowadays. "I didn't mean to interrupt you." Alja took care to let none of her disappointment at being torn from nature show.

"You didn't. I had nothing to do just now anyway." He replied with such guarded politeness it instantly made her suspicious. And she knew the statement most certainly to be a lie. A man in Kaleb's position was not likely to ever be unoccupied. "And I don't want to rush you, if you want to take a walk."

Alja didn't know what to say. This was definitively nothing she'd have expected.

When she didn't react immediately, he went on as if this was the most logical thing in the world. "Nature calms the senses. This is something I understand. – Would you mind my company? I have neglected recreational activities for quite a while too."

If he'd surprised her before, he flat out knocked her off her feet now. Did he really want to walk with her, just to indulge – or as the proper Psy called it – for recreational purposes? She knew among the other species this would have meant nothing, but to her –

The idea alone felt scandalously intimate and made butterflies come alive in her stomach. She felt like a teenager once again. Luckily it was dark enough that the change of color in her cheeks should go unnoticed._ Nature calms the senses. _It was the closest thing to an emotional statement she'd ever gotten from him. Maybe she'd really get a chance to look deeper inside this man who seemed to hide so much more behind all that cold power.

"No, of course not. I have to thank you for your time," she answered turning away to start walking, her head bent down a little.

So cool, so polite, Kaleb thought. It provoked him even more than her usual tendency towards disrespect. But this woman had just called him _hot_, had even blushed when she talked about him in that sensual way. How could he return to see her as a cold Psy soldier? He wanted to put his hands on that velvet skin again make her respond like she had under his lips. Soft, warm, inviting. "Have you been successful with your human contact?" he asked instead, barely noticing the fluctuations in the now constant hum of dissonance in the back of his head. A dissonance that was completely incapable of preventing his emotional response to Alja from strengthening bit by small bit.

"Yes, the emotional environment helped. I will be fully functional again as long as there are no more incidences." Alja answered in the most professional tone she had in her. _Oh god, what am I doing here?_ She thought, unsure whether this interaction fit more the parameters of a casual, recreational walk or prey being stalked by a predator. And none of her training had prepared her for such a situation.

"You don't have to act Silent with me if that helps you stabilize. It's illogical since I already know you feel." Illogical, yes. And he simply couldn't stand it to watch her shut herself off.

"It's not just an act. I _am_ capable of truly dampening my emotions." _Yeah, doesn't look like it right now!_ The little dark voice whispered in her mind. It shouldn't have come back so soon. At least it didn't sound angry right then. Just teasing, tempting. It would hold for now. _For heaven's sake do I really _have_ to walk around with a crazy half of me babbling in my head?_ She mentally replied with a grim sense of humor, even if she knew there was nothing funny about this. She wondered if it was like this for all Psy who broke and went insane.

"But it's not healthy for you." Kaleb's statement pulled Alja back from musing about her deteriorating mental status.

"It's not healthy for anyone." she replied, her tone sarcastic. "But maybe I'll take the offer, what have I to lose with you?" _You'll die if you ever show just a glimpse of what you truly are._ But she hadn't died, when Kaleb learned about her empathy. Perhaps she could trust him, just a little bit more. And it would be easier to hide her ever growing desire for him behind other, more acceptable emotions. "Or do you think I'll be as easy to read and manipulate as the humans you play with?"

Yes, that was the kind of answer he liked. Provoking in a way even his fellow Councilors seldom dared to speak to him. It stirred a kind of energetic excitement he'd never known before. "Surely not. I think you're far more interesting."

There was something in his tone that made her heart beat even faster than it already did. She focused on walking rather than responding. Suddenly self-conscious in a way she'd never experienced.

Kaleb was surprised. He'd expected another witty response. But probably he had gone too far. His behavior must appear more than strange to her. No wonder she got wary. But he had to keep her talking. He wanted to learn everything about that woman who spoke to parts so deep inside of him he hadn't even known they existed. "Tell me about the projection. How do you manipulate someone's actions through feelings? Can you program something like you can telepathically?" She'd always shown pride in her skills. Maybe she'd talk easier about them.

It worked. Alja gladly took on the innocuous topic. "Oh no, it's not that easy! I just project a general feeling. It is the mind of the target that directs it, interprets it. The psyche tries to find the source of the emotion in something proximal to the moment or environment when the feeling starts. For example something the target thought, or an object that is near. If the projection is strong enough the target acts in a way that its psyche perceives to ease the emotional tension. But the exact reaction cannot be predicted. In case of fear it could be running away or attacking. And you cannot definitely determine whom or what it will be directed at."

"So I might have kissed Silver or even Delenko had they been close when you projected?"

The question hit her without warning. So much for the innocuous topic. What had she expected? Of course he'd discuss this like any other scientifically interesting subject. This time it annoyed Alja even more and she knew exactly why. He had hit a soft spot. She'd drawn the conclusion only days ago but felt a sharp burst of jealousy when she'd realized the striking pattern. So she didn't think much before she blurted out her answer. "More likely Ms. Mercant. You seem to have a knack for fragile looking, blonde women."

Kaleb was pretty sure if he had a 'knack' for something, it was dark hair, a soldier's lithe but strong body and sky-fall eyes that saw decidedly too much. Could she have perceived a part of his darkest secret? "And you read that from what you called 'underlying emotions'?"

"Oh no, I could never read those. You have to actively feel on some level for an empath to be able to perceive something. I have to guess at the underlying motivations from your actions if I want to know. In this case I realized you keep a lot of women of that type around. For example Anastasia Velon: She's a little less fragile but the same type just as various other female members of your staff."

"And you concluded that would be my 'type of woman' if I felt."

"Figures. Don't you think?"

The sideways look she gave him with a half resigned, half wicked smile did it. He simply _had _to touch her. A mistake. A critical loss of control. But neither the dissonance nor the flashing pictures of the swan girl's broken body were strong enough to halt the action. He just wanted.

"Let me see your eyes." Without warning he stepped in front of her and gripped her chin, his eyes crashing into hers. She had to halt abruptly not to run into him. All her muscles locked in place, her behavioral controls working hard not to lean into the touch, while the memory of the last time those hands had touched her face made it impossible to pull away. He just kept looking at her. His handsome face just a little less hard, a little more human in the dim light of the moon shining through the canopy. And it was even more irresistible. Oh, if she could feel those lips on hers again! It would only take a little projective push. Fighting the temptation was almost impossible. "Kaleb what are you doing?" She managed to get out, her voice barely more than a whisper.

"Checking if you told the truth about being better now. – Your eyes are no longer as restless."

The explanation was cool, logical. But he didn't break the contact. Although only his fingers were burning on her skin, Alja thought she could almost feel the heat of his entire body through what little distance remained between them. And she couldn't look away from the sheer demand in his eyes. Right now she'd have given him anything, but she had no idea what it was he wanted from her.

The moment stretched over long seconds, as fragile and tense like a sphere of glass under the pressure of an iron weight. Alja was the one who broke it, not trusting herself not to do something unforgivably stupid this time. Pulling his hand off her face with her own as if to stress the insolence of touching her, she snapped out the first challenging response that came to mind. "You're really used to just taking everything you want aren't you?" The wicked voice was not satisfied.

_Come on! You know secretly he wants you. Why would he need to touch you? It's just a risk for him._

_Yeah now you're getting ridiculous. Well _I_ am, since you are me. – God, how pathetic can someone get? _

"I'm just making sure you're ok." Kaleb was frustrated and glad at the same time that she'd broken the contact. He didn't know what he'd have done had those eyes pulled at him for any longer. He only noticed that he had trouble keeping his breathing calm right now. And where she'd touched his wrist, her fingers had left a searing brand that made him instantly crave for more. This was the most exciting game he'd ever played and it gave him something that none of his power games ever had:

It made him feel alive.

Only this was not a game. This was pure madness.

And he had thought he knew madness. But this was a new kind of it. Not the twisted, dark insanity that he had caged in the core of his mind. It was a fire burning bright in a part of him he'd thought long dead. And he craved for its warmth and light even if it might burn him, blind him. This was a kind of madness he just couldn't resist. But how many excuses could he find to touch Alja, without revealing his gut deep need for it? His fingers curled into fists even now, fighting the urge to put them back on her face, her skin, her body.

"This doesn't concern our deal or my work for you." A hint of spite in her voice. Her eyes gleaming with challenge.

"Yes it does. I promised to protect you." He didn't move out of the way. So they still stood there in the middle of nowhere facing each other in a way that would have been considered highly inappropriate for any Psy.

"From Ming LeBon, not from my own demons." she retorted, still speaking calmly but with an increasing pace. Oh yes she'd take this as a power game, which it in all probability was. And she'd stand her ground; draw a line in the sand instead of submitting to either her own inappropriate feelings or his arrogant demands.

"Then tell me what kind of 'demon' got you in the state you were in this morning!" It drove him fucking insane that he didn't know how to protect her from this. His answers were coming faster with less time to think about. Just like hers. He had to be careful not to let himself be pulled into this suddenly heated discussion.

"As I said this is nothing concerning my work. It is a private matter. Or are you ready to tell me about _your_ demons – your so called monster? The reason why you won't dare to let go of Silence even if you accept the rest of us need to do so to survive."

Oh, she could fight mean when she was in the mood. That in itself was rather exhilarating. Only she'd picked the one issue Kaleb would rather have avoided. He came to believe she had a talent for it. "Why would it even matter to you if I'm Silent?"

_Because I need you to feel like nothing else – like no one else!_ The truth flickered in the back of her skull. She took a deep breath. Let her gaze sweep over the adjacent shrubbery. She had to calm down. This argument had gotten far too heated suddenly. Instead of the truth she answered with a platitude. "I'm at least partly an empath. It's part of who I am to care about these things."

"You're also Psy. You have grown up with the Arrows. Have you never considered emotion a weakness?"

A sudden pause. Alja freezing completely.

Avoiding the truth would be harder now. Her eyes that were still trained on a nearby bush spotted a tiny spider web, its silky threads covered in thousands of dewdrops like beads of glass. And although the spider silk was one of the toughest materials in the world – so tough the Arrow techs tried to recreate it to make better armor out of it – the little web was so fragile, because the bonds were so light, so thin. So beautiful, so fragile, so worth protecting. Maybe the truth was what was needed.

For a moment Kaleb thought his last question had hurt her pride, because she went so utterly quiet. Her answer however was just thoughtful and very, very serious.

"Of course. It's what I've been told all my life. And partly it's true. I know my parents loved each other, loved me. And they were killed because they couldn't let go. It scares me beyond reason that emotion can bring you so far." A short hesitation, while Alja struggled with the cautiousness her training demanded of her. Then she ripped open a part of her soul she'd never shown to anyone. "But what scares me even more is that I might never experience such an emotion myself. An emotion that is so deep it's worth dying for."

Seconds of complete silence. Even the tiny noises in the woods seemed to pause.

"You have some really unique views, Alja. But I think I can understand that one, even if I cannot relate to it." Finally Kaleb stepped aside and started walking again. He had to move, focus on something other than Alja or he'd do a lot more than go too far. He barely realized that he automatically started to tune out the pain of the dissonance. Another step down that unforgivable, yet alluring path.

"So you have never considered that you're missing something?" Alja wasn't ready to let it go.

"When I told you there is nothing good left in me, I meant it." And he knew it was true. Otherwise he'd take care to make Alja run away as fast as she could, so the monster inside him had no chance of ever getting to her. He had no illusions. Just because it was quiet now, didn't mean it wasn't evaluating her as prey. But he wasn't even good enough to let her leave – much less make her. Although even if he tried, that stubborn woman would probably stay. And for the first time he wondered what she saw, when she looked at him with her eerie, beautiful eyes full of life. "I have killed so many people that I have lost count a long time ago. What could the world of emotion possibly hold for me? There is probably only pure evil left in me."

Alja's chest grew tight when she heard him talk. This man hadn't just looked into the abyss. He'd gone down all the way and a part of him had never come back. How could she ever give him back what he had lost? Did she really have the right to question his decision for Silence? Still she couldn't believe he was lost. It just wasn't in her nature. "I don't believe such a thing as 'pure evil' truly exists. There is good in everyone. And deep down every sentient being is just looking for something to make them whole. And for those lost in Silence, there is nothing left but power to even make them feel alive." She didn't know how she dared to talk like this to him. Revealing another part of herself no one had ever known before. But she wanted to give him hope so badly; it was hard enough not to project again.

"Would you also say that about a true sociopath, about someone who has an intrinsic urge to kill innocent, human beings?" He was sure she would believe in pure evil, if she knew what lay inside him.

"Taking another life can create the illusion of ultimate power. Someone who does it must be very desperate. Very sick. But evil? It is such a human construct – an emotional construct even, don't you think?"

This discussion was leading nowhere Kaleb wanted to go further. And he knew why: It was because Alja was right, in a very unsettling way. So much of what she said was true. He'd realized that the night he'd sought her out in the gym. And now they were talking about emotional concepts – again. But he refused to be treated like some sort of lost child who had to be brought home. He had seen what _evil_ he was capable of and there was no other word for it – emotions or not.

"Obviously you haven't seen enough of human nature. I didn't think an Arrow could be so naïve." For whatever reasons she insisted on bringing up the issue of emotions again and again; his opinion wouldn't change. Only it no longer mattered, because his shattering armor of Silence told a very different story. But she could never know this weakness.

"Or maybe I have seen too much of it and this is what I need to believe to make _myself_ feel whole. – But you still haven't answered my question. Don't you think you're missing something? Even those you call 'evil' can feel good. Some say it's even easier for them, because they only care for themselves."

Alja no longer hid the fierce interest in her voice. They were already far too deep into this to pretend that this was a completely factual discussion. Still nothing prepared her for his next answer.

"Even if I might have been tempted, I've already seen were it gets me. The first woman I kissed had death in her blood the next day." Only when the words were out, Kaleb realized that he hadn't even wanted to say that. He had to stop this conversation immediately before it went any further out of control. Oh, but the question whether he was the cause for her terrible condition, had been burning in his brain ever since this morning.

"I don't know what you…Wait! How did you…?" Alja was dumbstruck for a second. He had surprised her so much she stopped walking. But it took her only a moment to draw the right conclusion. "My nosebleed – of course!" She noted she should have been alarmed at this new level of being observed – of being controlled. She should have known he'd investigate literally every scrap of information he could get on her. Her mind however wandered in another direction. "You don't believe that had anything to do with you, do you?"

Kaleb stopped a few steps ahead of her and turned slowly.

There was no visible reaction on his face but something in his eyes told her the truth. "You _do_ believe it was you." There was no way in hell she'd let him think that_ he_ had sparked the fatal reaction of her psyche, even if it meant giving up more of her darkest secrets. She reacted with annoyance however to conceal her sorrow at least. "Oh for heaven's sake if you must know: It was the residual."

Kaleb couldn't believe she'd finally open up on the topic. So he just raised his eyebrows in an unspoken question.

"I'm sure you've heard that empaths have trouble hurting other beings, because they feel the hurt they inflict upon them. I have learned to shut the empathic senses off. But it only works to a certain extent. If I go too far, a residual of the emotional imprint comes through."

"You didn't hurt anyone yesterday." _Certainly not me_ Kaleb thought. On the contrary, his blood ran hot at the mere thought of what he'd felt the other day.

"No, but in case of the people I killed the residual sticks. I usually compartmentalize my mind so that part is not active, but it can be triggered when I get unstable. – So you see all of my current state was just caused by the general recent stress. It had absolutely nothing to do with you." Except that it had everything to do with the wild desires Kaleb had awakened in her, that wouldn't be suppressed by her attempts of 'compartmentalizing'.

Kaleb on the other hand had trouble understanding what had just happened. Minutes ago Alja had been fiercely reluctant to reveal any of what was going on with her – which was comprehensible: He had thought she mistrusted him, when he said he wanted to protect her. It drove him mad that she shut him out, but it was logical. Distrust was something he could understand. Yet now she told him everything without hesitation, because she thought he might blame himself for her pain. Yes, Alja might be stubborn and provocative when it came to him, but she also – cared. No one had ever cared for him. Something tight in his chest uncurled at the realization, allowing more of the forbidden warmth of emotion to unfold. But he couldn't give in to such weakness now that he was so close to getting everything he had worked for since he was a child. He had to stay cold.

"Whatever you say. But alert me the next time you get close to such a breakdown. I need you functional."

It was a like a slap in the face to Alja how fast he was all back to business. Of course, he was. He'd gotten the answer he wanted, playing on her emotions. And she had fallen for it. Stupid. And it hurt. Kaleb's concern had fueled her hope that he might actually care for her – a hope that was doomed to the bitterest disappointment. And she'd learned one more thing tonight: Kaleb might not be able to affect her with his psychic powers, but if she let him any closer he could crush her heart in a way she'd never recover from. But he'd never know. Not as long as she had her protective armor of fake Silence. "Of course. So what about the shield work you wanted me to do?"

"I want you to use your disguise shielding to mimic this person."

Alja allowed the telepathic transmission to come through her shields. It was a mental image of a mind in the Net and even a short sequence of a mental voice. "The material is good. It won't take long. The mimicry will be ready whenever needed. Shall we go now? I think I've had enough recreation for today." She needed to get away from his arctic presence before it cost her all the balance she'd regained tonight.

Kaleb was so frustrated at being unable to act as he wanted in this situation that he had suppress another burst of pain and those sickening pictures before he could think of an answer. Yes, he had to stay cold but he didn't want _her_ to be. He wanted her to be herself, wanted to be the one to give her whatever she needed. But he couldn't offer any of it, because he was not supposed to care beyond the official agreement he had with the Arrow Squad. The irony wasn't lost to him: He was probably the most powerful man in the world and he couldn't take care of the woman who made his body and soul burn. He couldn't even ask her out like any man of another race might have. – But no, he could ask her out – sort of. And he had enough rational excuses for his next irresponsible action. "We'll leave in a minute. There's one more thing I have to do for you."

"I'm listening." Alja ground her teeth together hard. She'd get through this, whatever it was.

"There is a social event I need to attend in order to maintain the contacts with some human and changeling business partners. You could accompany me, if you think you'd profit from the emotional environment." The statement was cloaked in a cool matter-of-fact tone.

"And make them fond of you?" Alja was sure he wanted her there for her empathy. Her stomach turned at the idea of using her powers in such a way. But Kaleb surprised her once again, making it harder and harder to keep her distance.

"That won't be necessary. You'd just be present to help the other species to better relate to us Psy, reduce some of the reserve they have because of our Silence. It is usually expected to bring someone to these events. I have never done so before, but I think it might help my popularity if I brought a female companion."

Slowly Alja understood. "Like Henry and Shoshanna?" The two former Councilors had had a farce of a marriage to appear more human to the feeling races.

"Essentially, yes. I'll brief you on the people I'll meet and some business details, in case you're drawn into a conversation. But as I said it's mostly a social event. You won't have much to do."

"Will it be a public event? I usually like to keep a low profile." _Don't do anything stupid, child! We owe their kind nothing._ And agreeing to this would be beyond stupid. She mustn't let him see anymore of her true nature. And accompanying him in public would just draw more of Ming's attention to her, if that was possible at all.

"It is only a local event and you can wear contacts of course. There is no need to display that much power. But it's not an obligatory task. You can decide if you'd – _like_ to come." Years of practicing control over all emotional impulses made it possible to keep them at a minimum now. Still Kaleb felt his body temperature rise and his heartbeat accelerate without apparent reason.

Alja paused. He gave her a choice. And he hadn't taken any woman to accompany him before. Not even Silver. _So I might have kissed Silver…_ The memory of his words was pure torture. Most likely he was playing at her emotions again. And it worked – even though she knew. He was simply crushing all her defenses. "Alright. I'll do it."

* * *

Later that same night Kaleb stood at the edge of the patio outside his home looking down into the promising shadows of the gorge that fell away from it. The cool night air was pricking at the sweat coated skin of his bare chest. Only after he'd run himself almost to exhaustion could he think clear enough to make a rational assessment of his situation.

Almost every piece of his meticulously laid plans to take over the Net was in place. The only thing he still needed was utter compliance of the Arrow Squad. And they'd played into his hands when they asked him to protect Alja. If he handled that situation well, he'd probably win their loyalty completely. So far they'd only stand against Ming LeBon. But if Kaleb proved loyal protecting one of theirs however – one who even to them seemed more important than he could rationally account for – they might go further for him. Because when he finally took control, he needed the Arrows to contain the other former Councilors as long as their lives were vital for the stability of the Net. And after that the Net would be his alone. Even the Arrows wouldn't be able to stop him.

Reason enough to take good care of Alja. But he wasn't foolish enough to believe his obsession with her was just a way of nurturing an asset to bargain with the Arrows. Not when a single thought of her could unleash energies in his body that wouldn't be reduced by physical exertion. But there was more than just the physical attraction. She made him feel more alive than he ever had. And something about the way she saw the world, the Net, even Silence, made him feel less like a monster in her presence.

But it was an illusion.

"This can never be," he whispered into the dark void before him and reinforced his shattering Silence once more. Even if it would not halt the degeneration of the Protocol for long, it bought back some time to think as cool and clear as he once had.

He had lost valuable time being distracted by Alja – again and again. He couldn't afford any more delay in his plans. Because even if he didn't kill the others immediately, there would be many deaths when he finally overturned the order or the Net. Something he saw as inevitable collateral damage – except for the one person he couldn't risk losing in the ensuing chaos – his sun-mind. He had to find _Her_ first and put her in the safe place he'd prepared – behind thick walls of concrete and impenetrable psychic shields.

Knowing he had another sleepless night before him he cloaked himself in the invisibility of the Ghost, dove into the slipstreams of data in the Net and went searching for _Her_, more relentless than ever. Drawn back behind his shield of Silence he didn't realize that this was an act of repentance. He filtered through the data again and again, tried the obsidian archive for the umpteenth time and followed up every clue he'd ever had on _Her_.

Nothing.

She was gone. It was as if she'd never existed, although he was sure she was still alive somewhere out there. His knowledge of her mind was almost good enough to create a mental lock for a teleport– but just that: almost. And he was running out of time and ideas how to get to her.

Knowing he would not get on with it at the moment he turned towards the other matter that kept him awake and in the Net most of the time: The infectious rot that had spread through its fabric. It was growing at a faster rate now, invading more minds every day. He severed some infected stretches of the Net, taking care not to exhaust himself this time. Soon, he realized there would be not much of the Net left for him to take over.


	27. Chapter 27

**Chapter 27**

Two days later Alja made her way down to the entrance hall of the Krychek Business HQ for the first time since she'd arrived. As much as she loathed being stuck inside, she hadn't had a good excuse to go out and no desire to raise any more suspicions by leaving without apparent reason. But today she just had to get out, even if it was just an act of pure defiance.

The so called 'social event' was about to take place the next day and she'd just been informed by Silver that the occasion required formal wear. She hadn't really thought about what to expect – a company party perhaps – but she would not have guessed at something so fancy. Now it looked more like they were going to a gala dinner or something similar. That alone didn't matter much to Alja. She'd been trained for and involved in all kinds of social interaction during her missions among humans and changelings.

But Kaleb had sent Silver Mercant of all people to advise Alja on her outfit. The goddamn woman had shown up with her organizer full of digital fashion catalogues from which she should chose an outfit to order. _So I might have kissed Silver… _Neither her training nor the emotional advice from the NetMind had prepared her for the violent fits of jealousy she experienced whenever Kaleb's assistant appeared. Fully conscious she was overreacting in a way that would have put any ridiculous human or changeling soap opera to shame, she had refused Silver's offer and decided to go out and get something herself.

She had never cared much for fashion, jewelry or the like but she was woman enough to appreciate a little shopping. Something an assassin usually had very little time for. Now she wore her human disguise so she could vanish in the crowds of the city as soon as she left the building.

She never got as far.

When she crossed the hall, one of the guards stopped her. "Miss Dardo. I must ask you to stay inside."

"Excuse me?" Clipped words of a soldier despite the tumult inside her.

"You are not allowed to leave the building."

_Oh come on! He's locking me up? Seriously?_ This just got better and better. She should never have agreed to this farce. "I was about to acquire something that is necessary in my work for the former Councilor." Somehow she still succeeded to put the expected frost in her voice and the other Psy would never guess that right at this moment angry spite started boiling in her guts.

"I am acting on his direct order. I was informed this is for your safety," the man answered completely impassive.

"Of course." Alja knew the guard was just doing his job and he wouldn't have gotten that position if there was any way to convince him to act against his orders. She had to come up with something else.

Even with the improved schedules she still had ways to get past the security but decided this wasn't worth giving up that secret. But she would make it a point to show she was not to be caged. So before she addressed the guard again, she let part of her consciousness slip into the Net and went looking for someone only an Arrow could find.

He answered to her telepathic knock at once.

_Alja what is it?_

_Is my safe apartment in Barcelona still undisturbed and could you teleport there?_


	28. Chapter 28

**On the myth of projection**

(Excerpt from: _The Mysterious E Designation. Empathic Gifts & Shadows_. By Alice Eldridge)

There are rumors among the populace that some empaths are capable of actively changing or even inciting emotions instead of just heightening or dampening them. This ability is often referred to as _empathic projection_. Some historic documents even suggest that projection once was a means to cure severe emotional disorders and insanity. They also claim the skill was correlated with the ability to shield from psychic powers as well as emotional influences. This combination of abilities would make sense by biosocial means, as shielding would be crucial for someone who worked with mentally ill Psy patients. But the present study could not find sufficient evidence for empathic projection or significant correlations with special variants of shielding.

In empaths shielding skills seem generally more prevalent, which is by most researchers explained as an evolutionary development that compensates their lack of martial potential (see also chapter 2.3). The ability to shut off the empathic senses however is observed to be relatively weak in most E-Psy. Although this exposes them to the emotions of others around them, most subjects report not being troubled by it.

Among those who participated in the present research, there were only two subjects who reported incidents on which they might have been projecting. Both individuals had slightly higher ability to shield themselves from the emotional influences around them. But the observation of such a small sample is not enough to draw scientifically reliable conclusions.

Presumably projection is an extremely rare variation of empathy comparable to Backsight in the F-Designation. If the similarity is further applicable, this variation is likely to be too instable to be systematically influenced and thus trained. It is in any case currently not trained in empaths and all further research on the topic is not publicly available.

We can therefore not be certain about the existence or nonexistence of such a skill. It seems however as if rumors about ancient empaths who could cure even the worst forms of mental or emotional disorders belong to the realm of legends.

* * *

**Chapter 28**

It was almost midnight in San Francisco. The Ghost was waiting for Judd in the shadows of an old warehouse, where they'd met before. He had chosen the dimly lit location so the other man wouldn't see his face. The former Arrow had told him that even knowing the Ghosts true identity he wouldn't risk visual memories that would be harder to remove if he were ever taken. That was only one of the things that had gained him Kaleb's trust over the time.

Enough trust to risk giving Judd a hint that he was looking for information on empaths – especially projecting empaths. He had to know more about what Alja was capable of, since he could no longer trust his logic when it came to her. And specifying his request was the only option left, after his fellow rebel had informed him that Alice Eldridge was conscious most of the time now, but had not gotten back much of her memory. There was however a good chance Judd had other sources on empathy. They never talked about it openly, but Kaleb knew Judd had connections to Sascha Duncan – Nikita's defected daughter and a cardinal empath.

His own research on empathy hadn't been very fruitful. Even the Obsidian Archive that held the remnants of knowledge that the Council had tried to erase for over hundred years, had not revealed much. But in one point the information had been specific: an empath could not leave constructs in a brain like some telepaths could.

That meant Alja's influence should have ended the moment he was out of her projective range. But he had teleported to the other half of the planet often enough just to feel an instant urge to get back close to her. And it had proven futile to try to reinforce his conditioning even thousands of miles away from her. That was why he was now ninety-nine percent sure this could not be her psychic powers that were melting his Silence so irrevocably.

Still there was the question why she acted as if she didn't know about his fracturing conditioning. As an empath she must be able to sense that he had started to feel. Maybe she had her own agenda after all… And she was all but consuming his control which was a problem, whether she did it deliberately or not.

"I didn't expect you here already. What makes that information so important to you?" Judd's voice was calm, yet guarded when he materialized out of the dark.

"I can't tell you yet. But I can promise I won't use it to harm anyone." And he wouldn't. He just needed to know.

"Something about you has changed." Even knowing the other man for years Judd needed a moment to pin his conclusion down to observable facts. "You never were one to make promises – And you seem restless tonight."

"There's a lot of change…" For a moment the Ghost seemed distant – if his mind wasn't fully there.

"How's your sanity?" Blunt words from a man who knew him better than most.

"Holding." _Yet_ was the unspoken word that hung in the air. And they both knew it. "Now will you tell me what you found out?"

"I was able to access some of Eldridge's work on empaths. There might be a rare variation of the E-designation that fits your description. But obviously Eldridge didn't have access to all the research about it. The thing you asked for was only mentioned in one chapter." He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it over. "That's a copy of the page that discusses the term projection. It's not much. And the knowledge is heavily outdated."

Kaleb skimmed through the lines quickly before answering. "Yes, what she writes about backsight certainly is." Nowadays it was well known how to influence backsight and it had been considered a stable enough variation of Foresight to be considered as an official subdesignation. There were after all a lot of F-Psy who were significantly stronger seeing the past than the future.

"About what that last paragraph says…" Judd began.

"I know what you want to ask. And the answer is 'no'. I am not pinning my hope on some mythical creature to fix me. There are things that cannot be fixed." Final words.

Judd looked into the shadows before him for several seconds, wishing for once to be able to see, to read the face of the man who was so much like himself and yet so different. It was the first time the Ghost had openly admitted that something was wrong with him. But he had no help to offer to the man he called 'friend' although he probably didn't understand the term. "That is not for me to decide. – Do you have anything new on the political conditions in Europe and Asia?"

"The war is still mostly covert. There were some Pure Psy attacks on companies that work closely with the other races. But so far not as many as I expected. It's making business hard for some, but it's still manageable. In the Net on the other hand, the tension is rising perceptibly."

The Ghost didn't mention any human casualties. A few years ago Judd wouldn't have noticed that fact. Now it drew a sharp contrast between him and the other rebel, revealing how much he had changed since he left the Net. Again he wondered how much longer their goals would align. "It's mostly the same here. Pure Psy is still quiet – suspiciously so. But the few attacks they do pull off are getting more and more militarily refined."

"Ming?" Kaleb had already suspected the older Councilor for a while to have taken over the fundamentalist organization since Henry's death.

"We don't know for sure yet. He didn't stand behind Silence as firm as Henry and Shoshanna did, but he lost the Arrows. Maybe he wanted a replacement."

"I intend to ascertain that soon." With Alja's help he'd be able to break into the highest levels of Pure Psy's hierarchy.

"If he is? Will the Net tolerate his death?" Judd had no doubt Ming's life was forfeit the moment the Ghost decided he stood in his way. His sole regret was that Sienna wouldn't get the chance to kill the bastard herself.

"Why do you think I hesitated so far?" Even without connection to Pure Psy Ming had lost any right to exist the moment he'd tried to hurt Alja. Discomfort rose at the thought. He had to get back to Moscow soon, even if she should be safe for now. Since he had trouble functioning when he didn't know exactly where she was, he had decided to make sure he always did by minimizing her possibilities to move.

"Is it that fragile already?" Open concern in Judd's words. He had no reason to hide emotion anymore.

And not for the first time Kaleb envied the other man. "We're still keeping most of the violent outbursts secret but the rot spreads." It was the one thing all former Council members still unitedly worked on. If the populace knew the truth about the disease that drove more and more Psy to the most hideous and violent forms of madness, chaos would ensue. "Any major incident might cause severe stability problems."

* * *

Two minutes later Kaleb teleported into the bright light of the midday sun that was breaking through the glass front of his Moscow office. The first thing he did was to check his messages. Both Silver and Delenko had tried to contact him. He got back to the latter first, dialing in a video call to the other man's office.

"What was it about the security reports?" he asked as soon as Delenko answered.

"I just wanted to inform you that Dardo caused some tumult in the entrance hall today."

Kaleb paused at Delenko's phrasing. The members of security had a habit of addressing only the most senior among themselves simply by their last names. It was their version of showing trust and respect to well-tried colleagues. He wasn't yet sure how to interpret the fact that Alja had ascended inside that exclusive circle so fast. "What did she do?"

For a moment the security chief seemed slightly confused, as if he didn't understand the incident and thought about how to report it accurately. "She had an Arrow teleport in – with some unusual items."

"Did she leave the building?" Kaleb's mind automatically scanned for hers, only calming when he found her in the gym.

"No, but she seemed surprised to be halted. Hanser was in charge of the tightened security protocols. It must have slipped his attention to inform her about it."

"It didn't. I thought it unnecessary to inform her as long as she didn't get in contact with the new protocols."

The man on the screen hesitated, unsure how to phrase what he wanted to say. "You keep a very close eye on her. And this is not the first irregular incident with her. I think I am not certain about what her status among the staff is."

"Her skills – as you have already seen – make her a valuable asset I do not intend to lose. That's why her safety has absolute priority, even over her own preferences. Otherwise she is a member of your team like any other."

"I appreciate to hear that. The team values her for her work, too." Somehow Delenko seemed relieved, as far as one could say that about a perfectly Silent Psy.

"Good. Has the scene in the entrance hall caused any problems?" Kaleb wondered what Alja had been up to. But he already had a good idea who the Arrow had been. Both Aden and Vasic had repeatedly inquired after Alja, whenever their work required that they contacted Kaleb. And Vasic was as fast a teleporter as Kaleb himself.

"Only as far as the presence of Arrows generally causes discomfort in some people. – And then there are the items she had him bring to her. She officially signed them in, asserting she wasn't sure whether any of them qualified as weapons, although they were just –" A short pause as Delenko searched for the right description of things he rarely encountered. "It was a blue dress, a pair of woman's shoes and some pieces of decorative cosmetic."

When he heard it, Kaleb felt a strange sensation coming alive in his stomach – closely followed by some new spikes of dissonance. He had to actively control his facial expression to prevent the corners of his mouth from tugging upwards. Had it not been for the painful warnings he would have laughed out.

That stubborn, mischievous woman! Of course she hadn't tacitly accepted to be locked inside. But she hadn't come running to him to complain either. Clever and bold as she was she'd sent him a message: She would not tolerate to be restricted.

And she was not alone. The loyalty of the Arrow Squad went far enough to take the time and the risk of confrontation with him to bring her something as trivial as some clothing.

But she had also stayed – by choice. She might as well have asked the other assassin to teleport her wherever she wanted to go and given him hell of a time finding her again. But no, Alja did not hide from him, just like she still hadn't cringed at the thought of what he'd done. And for the first time he caught himself comparing her to the woman he'd been searching for so long. The one who was so soft and gentle, he probably couldn't let her see a tenth of what he was without scaring her to death. On the other hand that woman would probably not mind restrictions for her protection. If she was like he'd always pictured her, she'd rather ask, maybe beg for his help, like the swan changeling had. And he wouldn't fail her like he had that girl, because he had to live up to his silent vows.

But that helpless softness held no appeal for him. Not like Alja did, the woman who had gone through death and survived – more than once. She would never tolerate the prison he'd built for his quarry. It was so comfortably designed, most would never recognize it as what it was, but his perceptive Arrow would see the bars of the cage.


	29. Chapter 29

**Chapter 29**

Alja had prepared herself perfectly, like she had for every job she'd ever done. If Kaleb wanted a sociable companion he'd get one. It was part of the price she paid for protection from Ming.

Considering the whole thing as a part of her employment had helped to concentrate on her training and get her behavioral controls back in order. When she watched herself in the elevator mirror she thought for a moment she looked like she tried a little too hard to impress someone. Like anything else she'd hide that trace of insecurity behind the role she was playing tonight. When she exited the elevator, she spotted Kaleb at the entrance discussing something with the guard who had stopped her the other day.

Kaleb sensed the unknown Psy mind approach from the elevators and knew it was Alja. A part of his mind constantly traced her signature in the Net as well as in the physical world and he'd watched her mental appearance subtly and slowly change about two hours ago. "… and inform me if you encounter any other problems with the new rotations." Still talking to the guard he turned towards her to be almost left speechless. The woman who crossed the hall in an elegant, measured pace looked every inch like a human movie star. And she moved with all the ease and grace of one. She wore a long-sleeved, flowing gown, made of midnight blue satin. It brought out all her feminine curves perfectly, while it caressed her legs as if it was liquid. Her simple, swept-up hairdo emphasized the evenness of her features, while a few loose, curled strands gave her face an almost playful appearance. She had put on only light make-up that matched the contacts she wore to conceal her cardinal eyes. He ran his gaze down her body – and up again meeting her eyes.

Alja didn't fully understand why the way Kaleb looked at her suddenly made her very aware of her femininity, her skin stretching taut with sensations she hadn't thought herself capable of. "Is my appearance not adequate?" She gave her voice an undertone of provocation that was so faint only he would recognize it.

"No it is. I am actually surprised, that you look so… adequate." Beautiful. Ravishing. How could he ever have thought of her outer appearance as mediocre? And how was he going to keep his emotional response to her even moderate tonight? This was going to be a very painful evening – and very much worth it.

"Was there anything else Mr. Krychek?" the neglected guard asked slightly insecure of the attention of his superior.

"No that would be all." Kaleb didn't take his eyes off Alja when she came to stand beside him. When she turned to the side, he saw that only a single strap of the midnight blue fabric of her gown went around her nape. Otherwise the dress left her back bare all the way down to her waist.

Nothing about Alja ever was what it seemed to be at first glance. He should have learned that by now. Still his breath caught at the sight of her exposed skin and he knew he needed to touch her again no matter how much pain it cost him. Tearing his gaze away from Alja's back to meet her eyes again he said: "I think offering you my arm is in order."

Alja was glad for the few seconds Kaleb's conversation with the guard had given her to pull herself together. She hadn't thought this man could look anymore gorgeous than he usually did. She'd been wrong. He was wearing a classic black tuxedo complete with silk lapels and bow tie. His hair was so perfectly styled she had to fold her hands behind her back for a moment to stop herself from messing it up to make him look more like the wildness she'd sensed in him when he'd kissed her. Then she played along and slipped her hand through the bent arm he held out for her. Even through the shirt and jacket she felt coiled muscle and unexpected heat.

To her surprise Kaleb led her out the main entrance and instead of pushing for a teleport. She felt some of his power wrapping tightly around her shields. He was encasing her in an additional Tk shield to protect her from any non-psychic influence the moment they left the building.

"Are we not teleporting?" she asked.

"Popping up in the middle of a gathering tends to irritate people – even Psy. We'll drive." With that a sleek black sedan appeared out of thin air in front of them – just like that. Alja wondered if Kaleb even noticed the irony in this. She took a short glance back at the building to ensure no one else was watching. Then she shook her head at him with a crooked smile. "So are you going to hold the door for me now or do you teleport me inside?"

He gallantly went for the door, easing into his role just as well as her. Even worse was that he didn't look as inapproachable as usually. His expression was still cool but not as openly intimidating. Not that intimidation had ever really worked with Alja but now he just made her fall for him with that cool charm. He seemed almost harmless except for a latent tension she couldn't quite explain. And all of it was just fuelling desires in her that had no hope of ever being satisfied. _Yeah, naturally he must look and act like fucking Prince Charming! He has to put on a big show for the other races tonight._ She thought dryly while she struggled to let none of her reaction show. Kaleb was wearing a mask too, that was all there was to it.

Getting in the driver's seat Kaleb felt his body tense immediately. But it was not a reaction to a threat. He had done a security check on the car only minutes before he met Alja and the garage where he kept his rarely used vehicles was accessible only by teleport. But being in a confined space with Alja gave his subconscious and in extension his body all sorts of exciting ideas that were conflicting hard with his Silence.

His feelings had reached a level where the gruesome images he'd tied to his conditioning almost constantly flickered through his mind. It was getting harder and harder to think clear. But he hadn't practiced iron control over his mental functions for nothing. His mind was still working more efficiently that most others ever would. Regardless of that it was irresponsible to carry on like this. He'd never been like that – never tolerated anything but a hundred percent control.

But he couldn't stop. When he looked at Alja he just wanted. "We should use the time until we arrive efficiently. Can you show me the mimicry of the mind I charged you with?" With that he switched the car to autopilot, keeping one eye on the road nonetheless.

Alja was relieved. Yes work was good. It would distract her from his devastating presence, from the pure need he stoked in her. "Right away. I assume you can see my mind on the psychic plane?"

"I can, but I want you to do it on mine." Without further announcement he reached behind her and placed his hand on the naked skin right below her nape.

It hit Alja completely unprepared. The sensation shot down her spine right down to the lowest regions of her abdomen. When it turned into a liquid kind of heat at the juncture of her thighs, she discovered that she'd been wrong about knowing what she was missing when her senses were numbed. She'd had no idea! If a single touch could incite such a response in her, then how would it feel if he stroked down her back, over her hips, maybe her thighs… _Focus Alja! Work! _"Yes, of course." Forced coolness in her voice.

Kaleb found that in spite of the dissonance he could relax a little when she didn't evade his touch. That was a good sign – probably. He realized that he was absolutely clueless about how to read her reaction. And he was too occupied keeping his hand from exploring the exposed skin of her back to further think about it. He felt her shields flow around his mind like the gentlest embrace. Then she suddenly tensed.

"Something's wrong." she stated, the elite soldier instantly back in her tone. "That was vicious..."

"Break contact?" Alarmed he lowered the speed of the car to be able to pull more of his concentration on the psychic plane and see what she meant.

"No, I want to know what that is." Carefully she analyzed the object that had sucked on to her shields the moment she connected them with Kaleb's mind. "Do you have trackers laid out around your Net shields?" Almost invisible in the dark skies of the Net a dozen more of the insidious mental devices wavered in the empty space.

"No. And I'm sure those couldn't have touched them without my notice." The thing Alja had captured seemed to be constructed out of fine silvery threads of data, probably viruses – and it dissolved right before their eyes. When she touched one of the others to have a closer look, they all shot away into the darkness like a swarm of startled fish.

"They lingered just outside your usual radius. The one I got was designed to cling to my shields and then start to dissolve them. Strange that the others didn't react when I linked to you."

"Someone risked a shot in the dark. Most likely the others were designed differently and only one worked with your shields. Did it get through?"

"No of course not. It was so easy to remove it barely scratched my shields before they resealed completely." What she didn't say was that even a scratch was more than anyone ever achieved with her shields. It made a choking kind of fear uncurl in her stomach. She suppressed it the way she always suppressed emotions when she worked, risking a split from her dark part again. "But whoever did this knew that I'd link to you sooner or later."

"Did they get a glimpse on the mimicry?"

"No, I hadn't even started to apply it."

"Good. I think we'll need it even more now." Whoever did this would pay. No one would harm Alja. It was a pity he couldn't kill the ones he suspected at once. They were too important for the Net – yet. "You should relocate your mind, in case they're trying to track you down."

She hesitated.

"What are you waiting for?" Well trained as she was she must know every second mattered.

Alja knew he was right: she needed to change her position in the Net. Found no excuse not to do as he advised. But…"I can't. My telepathy isn't strong enough. I can only change my position after I drop out." Apart from her cardinal skills her psychic powers were pitifully weak.

How could he have forgotten? He knew her file by heart: her Tp was only 2.7 but she always seemed so damn strong – so much like himself. But of course she wasn't. No one was like him. "Stay linked. I'll do it for you." The next moment they were in a different section of the Net. He had tugged her stationary mind along with no effort. She had only ever seen the NetMind do that to minds that were too isolated in the Net. "Do you want to return to the headquarters to rest?"

_Are you fucking kidding me?_ Her fear was replaced by a sudden anger at being seen so weak by him. "That was nothing I am not used to or trained for. We proceed as planned," she almost snapped at him. _No need to lock me up again for my protection._ She bit back the defiant words for once.

Proud, strong, stubborn Alja. No, he wouldn't hurt that pride. "Very well. I admit I was surprised myself. I have never seen that kind of tracker before." Realizing she had retreated her shields from his, he reluctantly put his hand back on the steering wheel. Touch was no longer justified.

"Me neither, but I'm positive this time it was none of us."

She seemed so thoughtful, he wasn't sure she noticed that she'd spoken aloud. "Us?"

"You remember when the Arrows first contacted you?"

They had repeatedly and subtly tried to hack his shields, even slipped through his outer defenses and then deliberately triggered an alarm mechanism. It was how he knew it had to be the Arrows. No one else had the skills to do that.

He nodded.

"Who do you think advised them on how to get your attention?" She gave him one of _those_ smiles – full of mischievous challenge. No, she wasn't weak. She was just so extraordinary it made her very hard to judge.


	30. Chapter 30

**Chapter 30**

Alja had already begun to expect another surprise, when they'd driven through an extensive park and up in front of a baroque mansion so large you could as well call it a palace. Entering the room where the event took place she was stunned. It was a huge hall decorated with rich golden ornaments and wall paintings alternating with gigantic mirrors. On the wall to their left a large buffet table was set up. To their right were two bars offering various beverages and on the opposite wall a stage that accommodated a group of musicians. The middle of the room was filled with beautifully decorated dining tables, except for a wide, empty area in front of the stage – a dance floor. Alja thought she couldn't believe her eyes.

"A ball?" The words popped out of her mouth before she even fully processed the fact. "To say this is not what I expected would be a severe understatement." she added quickly.

Kaleb just looked at her, visibly amused at her hardly contained surprise.

But of course he wasn't. His smile was just so compelling she had to remind herself that it was just a charade. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"You didn't ask." A lie. He had wanted to surprise her, imbalance her enough to make her lose her cool again.

"And you didn't think I could have prepared more accurately had I known?"

Once more he let his eyes wander over her body in that very unsettling way. Then he stated in with the coolest tone: "In my eyes your preparation is more than sufficient."

_So I'm the eye candy now?_ Alja tried hard to be annoyed, but really her heart had started jumping at the compliment and she was a little overwhelmed by the unexpected ambience anyway. When she heard Kaleb's telepathic voice the next moment, she almost feared her last thought had slipped out on the psychic plane. But it seemed he just wanted to avoid being overheard.

_Let's get to our seats. If you need more information, I'll tell you some details on our way._ With that he started to walk toward the tables right in front of the stage, holding out his arm for her once more.

He knew it was madness to actively seek those forbidden, uncontrollable sensations – especially in such a public place, when dozens of eyes were trained on their already unusual appearance. But all he cared about were the flames Alja ignited so deep inside him. And he was quickly getting addicted to those flames. Reluctantly he put up some of his fine honed control and chilled the impulses to a level that allowed him to function properly. When Alja fell into step beside him he continued the telepathic conversation. _This ball is an annual event in Moscow. Most of the leading business managers are invited and some human and changeling high society. Officially the goal is to collect money for some charity organization. _

You_ care for the ones in need? _

_I'm one of the main donors. _

_Not so bad for an unfeeling monster. _She couldn't bite back the comment. She had to cling to any hint that suggested something more than a cold power hunt as a motive for his actions.

_Don't go there again Alja. _A sharp warning. It was hard enough keeping up his usual air of coldness, without having to discuss his possible affectivity with her again. He wondered how she did it if she was submerged by emotion all the time. _I'm not the only one. Social commitment is very good for publicity, especially for us Psy. And along the way a lot of important business deals are made here. Beside the publicity this is our main reason for attending. And don't worry, dancing is not expected from Psy. _

Cool calculation in every word. So that was why so many of their race were present. At second glance it was not hard to distinguish them: Although they were dressed just as elegantly as anyone else in the room, the lack of color and genuine style betrayed them: Most of the women were dressed in simple black robes and if they wore jewelry it were only the most perfect pearls or diamonds, chosen not for their beauty but for their signaling effect: displaying the wealth of the owner. And all of them had the same facial expression, standing stiffly around the edges of the room, some of them checking their organizers now and then.

They drew a stark contrast to the humans and changelings that gathered around the buffet table and on the dance floor. There were couples touching, dancing and joking – the changelings always a little more openly affectionate. Their exquisite, colorful dresses, laughter and buzzing excitement carried a warm joyful atmosphere one didn't need to be an empath to perceive – contrary to the nothingness she her own people radiated. And it was a kick to the guts to be shown so plainly what she'd never have while having to act as if she was part of all this. And worse, she couldn't bring her stupid heart to believe that this gorgeous, courteous man beside her was just a lie.

"Good evening Councilor!" they were welcomed by a man in his late thirties, who was one of four humans already seated at their table. At Alja's and Kaleb's approach they all rose up to greet them – a trace of curiosity in their faces that was clearly concentrated on Alja. She'd been briefed about all of them. Kaleb was associated to the man who had spoken first and the woman of the other couple. But both their spouses wielded significant economic power in Moscow too.

While he maneuvered Alja through the introductions Kaleb found himself fascinated by the way she dealt with the humans. Her charm was just icy enough to be Psy and still compelling enough to draw everyone's sympathy.

He also had time to assess her outfit in a more calculating manner. On first glance she just looked like a woman dressed up for a solemn occasion. But of course that wasn't all there was to it: Her shoes were elegant but the heels flat enough to run or fight. The fabric of the wide, floor-length skirt was light enough that she could move her legs freely. The long ruffled sleeves probably hid at least one deadly willow glass blade and covered her arms that were slightly too muscular for an average Psy woman. No she wasn't weak. She still was a lethal Arrow in yet another disguise. None of the others at their table noticed. In fact the men even paid her compliments. It irritated him far more than it should. But even if it was the last thing he wanted to do right now, he had to get away from Alja. He had to think more clearly and he couldn't abandon the transactions he was here to complete: Building stable relations to the human and changeling businesses was an important step in his plans. He needed them before the Net was swathed in chaos. Because then he could no longer count on his own race. And Alja was more than equipped to deal with the necessary small talk at their table. So when he spotted Selenka Durev he excused himself and strode off into the crowd.

Alja saw Kaleb walk towards a woman she knew to be the alpha of the local wolf pack and wondered again, if he was keeping her away from changelings on purpose. Not that it bothered her, but she should have encountered some of them since they were part of his security too. She pushed away the thought and focused on the conversation.

She displayed perfect civility while she evaded every hint at the political situation. It wasn't hard. Everyone tried to dodge the topic. But their ulterior motives were obvious: Those with higher levels of political or economic power were jockeying for the best positions to make profit in the unstable situation. Kaleb would be pleased to hear that, pleased she did her job so well. Stale resignation dulled her heart at the thought. It was followed by an even worse bite of jealousy, when she looked across the room where Kaleb had started talking to a human woman in her early twenties. Another fucking blonde! And wasn't he an example of integrity? – smiling, charming, flirting even. The woman was disgustingly flattered by his attention. Oh Alja'd have gladly taken the residual of doing violence to the bitch.

_Yeah, Alja just go on getting jealous. That's very mature and professional. _She tried to reason with the part of her mind that had decided to overreact in a way she'd never known from herself. The woman was absolutely innocent. She was just falling for Kaleb's civilized mask like several other women in the room including herself. Oh hell, the thought that almost every woman she'd watched had given him the once-over with more than approval on her face made her want to explode. She had to get moving. "Your glasses have been empty for the past fifteen minutes. Why don't we get some refreshments?" she suggested to the others at the table.

"Oh yes, great idea! And I wanted to have a go at the dessert table before the next dance starts." One of the women retorted at once. Then she seemed to realize that Alja – like most Psy in the room – hadn't eaten from the buffet all evening and she added a little insecure. "Or we can just go to the bar for a drink."

"No let's have a look at the dessert," Alja retorted at once. Maybe some chocolate cake would help dampen the impact of her frustration about Kaleb. She had denied herself anything but nutrition bars for weeks but it hadn't helped with her response to him in the slightest. So to hell with it. After all it wasn't forbidden for Psy to eat human food – it was even advised under certain circumstances. _And since we're making _such_a point of associating with humans… _Defiance, she was acting out of pure defiance again. She had to get her behavior back in control once this was over. But for now it was enough that her actions were within the parameters of accepted Psy behavior in the presence of other races.

* * *

Kaleb had finally ended the exhausting conversation with the daughter of the owner of a large tech company he intended to buy into before the civil war broke out in the open. Although highly intelligent and skilled in economics, she had one of the most boring minds he'd ever seen. But at least he was positive that he had successfully implemented the thought, that she must convince her father how great a business connection to a certain very charming Councilor would be. And he'd been careful enough to cover up any psychic trace. Humans might not be immune to telepathy but if one wasn't careful, they could at least find out that Psy powers had been involved.

Looking over to their table, he didn't see Alja and started shadowing human minds in the room to find her, slipping inside their thoughts without ever being noticed. He spotted her from the mind of a young man who was apparently talking with his friends about her: "Look at that smile again. You'd almost believe it's real!" The words held wonder and contempt at the same time.

She was standing at the bar together with the humans from their table and a few others. She and two other women were just emptying small dessert plates while the men passed over their drinks. Kaleb caught himself hoping she really did enjoy herself, and that her smile wasn't just part of her mask.

"Bah! She's just playing us all! And the humans fall for it like rabbits staring at a snake!" Another man who belonged to the group replied to the owner of the mind Kaleb shadowed. The human knew him as Alek. Kaleb brushed over the minds close to the one he was shadowing, finding he couldn't slip in as easily. They were all changelings.

"I don't care. She's fucking hot and a woman like her should be touched." Another changeling joined the discussion. Kostja was the name in the human's memory.

Kaleb stepped closer to be able to watch them across the room. He recognized most of their group as senior soldiers from the BlackEdge wolf pack, probably here as an extension to their alpha, Selenka Durev's security.

"Yeah your hand would probably freeze off if you tried. Or she'd just Tk you off or something." The human replied laughing, though Kaleb couldn't quite understand how the comment was comical.

"I don't know. She sure as hell doesn't stink as bad as the rest of them." Kostja again.

"Maybe you should ask her to dance." Alek's suggestion was followed by a round of roaring laughter.

"Hey why not? I'd totally do it."

"Do you have a death wish, Kostja? She's with Krychek after all." Alek rolled his eyes at his packmate indicating that this kind of idea wasn't new to him.

"So what? It's not like that block of ice is gonna get jealous." The man had no idea! In vain Kaleb tried to strangle the hot anger that this Kostja triggered with his comments.

"No, but these people sure as hell don't dance and might find it insulting if you provoke them by asking her to." The human tried to reason once more.

"Well, worst that can happen: she says no." And with that the wolf started to walk towards the bar. He was actually about to follow up the idea.

Both his friends shook their heads at him and Alek called after him with a kind of insecure amusement. "You're insane. You know that? – But just go. We'll watch the fun from over here."

Kaleb watched the man cross the hall towards Alja. From his gestures, it was easy to see that he really was asking Alja to dance.

He instantly broke the connection to the humans mind and tried to get to her too. He remembered she'd said changelings were hard for her emotions to handle. And if that one had dared to ask her, he may be stupid enough not to accept her refusal. But to his surprise Alja didn't even attempt to refuse. He just got close enough to hear her say "It would be my pleasure." With a dazzling smile that seemed slightly ironic. She was all ease and charm as she had been all evening.

Only that kind of smile belonged to him.

His conditioning was swashing over his mind in a hail of pain and the horrible images he remembered only too well these days. It did nothing to halt the murderous jealousy that ignited inside him.

The changeling was clearly as surprised as anyone else in the room, when he was leading Alja to the dance floor. Multiple pairs of eyes focused on the unusual couple.

Then the damn wolf put his hand on her back – on her skin!

The illumination of the room flickered for a second. That was how long it took Kaleb to get his Tk back in control. It had been a diffuse impulse, only caught by the electronic lamps on the walls and ceiling. A startled murmur went through the hall, but otherwise the people were unimpressed.

That was close, far too close.

How in hell had he ever thought it would be a good idea to bring Alja to a room full of men who couldn't take their eyes off of her?

The music started and the couples began to move on the dance floor.

Kaleb struggled with his conditioning for an entire minute before he realized that the only thing that would calm him was to have that idiot of a man – that animal – stop touching Alja. Although he'd rather have vaporized him, he scraped up enough self-control to do something he'd seen other men do several times. He crossed over the floor to where they were dancing.

Now it was Alja's turn to be surprised. She knew she was in trouble when the wolf in front of her suddenly tensed and turned very pale gaping over her shoulder. When she heard Kaleb's voice right behind her she almost froze.

"It seems I've been neglecting my partner. Would you mind if I cut in to make up for it?" It sounded more like an icy threat than a question. The wolf's mouth fell open and he stared in disbelief for a moment before he quickly stepped aside almost tripping over his feet.

Kaleb took his place as her dance partner calmly and utterly focused – like a predator before the kill.

_Flex your shields!_ He commanded at once.

_You're teleporting me out?_ She had to admit she hadn't really thought this through, but he was surely overreacting a little.

_Certainly not. Now we're going to pull this through. But I didn't have much practice dancing. _When he was first invited to the ball a couple of years ago he hadn't known what was expected of him, so he had prepared for all eventualities and made sure he knew the basic steps but not much more. _I never thought I would really need that skill. So it might be helpful if you let me assist with Tk._

That got him an amused smile but she obeyed immediately. It calmed him a fraction. It turned out he didn't have to push with Tk even once. Alja's body flowed with his movements as if she'd never done anything else. The dark satin of her dress fluidly caressed her body with every move, along with the liquid motion of her shields. It was a soothing flood to his whipped up emotions to have her so close, to feel the warmth of her body under his hands.

Alja tried her best to keep calm. It proved only to be possible on the outside. Dancing with the changeling had been nice. She had always liked the way movement and music combined. But with Kaleb – this was beyond description. His hands were burning on her skin and sent waves of heat to places deep inside her. And the feel of his body moving so close to hers in the perfect sync of the dance made her imagination go wild. She wouldn't have believed someone so cold could move like that, interact with her body as if they were one. But as Tk movement was second nature to him. So of course he could. Only she'd never have expected him to. Yet here she was floating across the floor in his arms, swathed in sensual bliss. It felt like she was shoved into a cheesy dream. – And that was all it would ever be. But for now didn't care that it was all a fake. She just luxuriated in the moment, absorbing the sensations. And oh how she wanted more!

_Why did you cut in at all?_ She asked, the hope that she finally found some trace of emotion in him more prominent than ever. Kaleb's answer put a sudden damper to her blissful fantasy – like always.

_That wolf was questioning my dominance by dancing with my woman._

_'__Your woman'?_

_It might not matter to us, but by their social norms it was a clear challenge_. In truth he had no idea if that rule really applied. It just sounded very animalistic and was by far more acceptable than admitting that he couldn't bear to let another man put his hands on her.

A stab of bitter pain stung her heart. She suppressed it with anger, fully cognizant that she was risking her emotions to spin out of control again. "Wow! Obviously that is something so archaic all men understand it, regardless of Silence." she said aloud rolling her eyes at him. This whole thing was getting more and more ridiculous.

He wanted to shut her mouth with a kiss. _You could have refused. Since you didn't, I had to intervene._ He telepathed instead, having no intention to let their conversation carry over to some sensible changeling ears.

_I was under the impression we were making a show of associating with the other races. It was a good opportunity to do so._ That was perfectly reasonable. But frustrated as she was, she just couldn't hold back another provocation. _And maybe I didn't want to refuse. You know cardinal women are quite partial to predatory changelings._ She referred to the three cardinals who had recently defected from the Net and formed the deepest emotional bonds with predatory changelings. She was deliberately yanking his chain although she didn't believe it'd work. But nothing prepared her for his next reaction. His face suddenly had lost all the charm he'd put up all night. He spoke the next words out loud, his voice piercing.

"Careful Alja. Don't go too far."

At the same moment his hand on her back tightened possessively and he pulled her so close to his body that her breasts touched his chest and her thighs brushed his with every step. Why did she hear a promise in his voice rather than a threat? All her muscles tightened, only causing her body to arch further towards him. Suddenly the bodice of her dress felt too tight around her breasts and heat rose up to her cheeks. She was sure she was blushing bright red. _Oh yeah we're into threats. It's a shame he can't put a knife on your throat in the middle of a dance floor!_ The wicked voice chirped. But it was swept away in the rapture of the dance as the music picked up pace and Kaleb swirled her across the floor faster and faster.

Kaleb wondered if Alja had any idea what she was putting him through, how close to the edge she brought him. It was more luck than anything else that he managed to keep it together. In a split second after Alja's comment he had scanned the room for the mind of the bloody wolf. The only thing that kept him from evaporating the man with Tk was that he didn't find him immediately. He must have left the building. That short moment of delay gave Kaleb a chance to consider what he was doing and block the murderous impulse from going into action. The thought of Alja being attracted to another man instantly put him on the insane end of jealousy. That the bastard had touched her, had been allowed to –

Reproachful, dead eyes, feathery blonde hair –

Warning flashes of memory filling his mind. But they were pushed aside by new desires: The scent of wildflowers after the rain, a lock of dark hair brushing his face in the draft of a spin. It stimulated a new set of images in his mind: A fall of Alja's red-brown hair sliding through his fingers with a touch of the softest silk, running over his naked chest as female lips laid a trace of heat down his abdomen… Memories and fantasies tangled up inside his head. The physical contact made it impossible to tune down either. He had to exert all the control he had left to keep his very physical response to her in check. It would have been far easier if he hadn't pressed her so close that practically the only thing that separated their hips was the fabric of their clothing. But he couldn't bring himself to loosen the hold. Her face was all but touching his. He could even smell the scent of her velvet skin – it was intoxicating.

_What exactly are you doing?_ Alja whispered to his mind. She didn't know how she finally managed to think beyond the incandescent sensations. But suspicion had been her companion for long enough it had come through somehow. And Kaleb had shown his manipulative nature once again when he'd referred to the dominance challenge. Everything was a power game for him.

_I am dancing with my date, just as expected. _On the surface the lies came out as smooth as ever.

_Good, because it just felt as if we were painting big fat targets for Pure Psy on our backs. _

The realization hit him like a punch to the guts. What had he been thinking?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

He had been driven by these irrepressible impulses, his brain functioning just well enough not to take out the stupid changeling the moment he laid his hands on Alja. But what he'd done was unforgivable. He had put her in mortal danger. – Well, in even more danger than she had been in already, if that was possible at all. Still he responded calmly. _It was unavoidable in the situation and a political statement on my part was overdue._ Because that was what it was: Not once in the five years Kaleb had visited the ball, he had ever seen a Psy dance. No Psy ever danced, even less a Councilor. And in the current political situation… For the public there was only one interpretation of his actions: Kaleb had just publicly withdrawn support for the Silence Protocol in the most dramatic fashion.

The applause at the end of the dance was roaring. It destroyed every hope that anyone in the room had _not_ noticed what had just happened. He had to get Alja out of the line of fire before all hell broke loose.

Alja was speechless. She hadn't thought of it like this before: Yes, everything was a power game for Kaleb, but she had been here to play along and not fuck it up like she'd done, when she let defiance and frustration drive her actions. She had never messed up a job so badly. Not even the kills. She'd been perfect until this man came along and screwed all her precious control over.

_I guess we have caused enough trouble for one evening and should now politely take leave. _Kaleb added when the dance floor started to empty.

_Of course. _She was glad she didn't have to speak aloud. Her throat was starting to feel like sandpaper. How was she going to get out of this?


	31. Chapter 31

**Chapter 31**

Sitting in the car beside Alja, Kaleb got increasingly uncomfortable. He had expected her to react in some way she usually did. But she hadn't spoken a word since they left the ball. Instead she sat stiffly in her seat, her gaze directed somewhere on the dashboard in front of her. Had this been her goal – Make him lose control in such a public way? Was she waiting for her superior to get her out? No, that wouldn't be enough. She'd have to push him a lot further to make him fall. His mind was trying to focus on the political implications, trying to calculate as cold as usual. Only weeks ago he'd have comprehensive control of the situation by now and at the slightest suspicion of Alja being consciously involved in a plot against him, she would have been dead. But weeks ago it would never have gotten this far.

Now all he could think of was that he didn't want this to be over. He'd fooled himself into believing he was cautious with her because she might be a trap. But if she was, he had already fallen into it. And the truth was, when the trap snapped shut, the game would be over and he'd lose Alja forever – one way or the other. And he couldn't let her leave, even if she had betrayed him, which was something he – beyond all reason and experience – couldn't believe. Probably she was just scared of being in Pure Psy's crosshairs.

"Does the situation worry you?" he asked cautiously.

That was about the last thing Alja had expected. She was still wound up in trying to figure out how to justify that she'd acted out of control again. The dancing alone she might have explained, which might not matter, because justified or not, there was a good chance this would lead to a political scandal. But her comment about being partial to changelings had crossed so many lines, she was sure she wouldn't get away this time. She drew a deep breath before she answered. "Let's get it over with. I know this will have consequences for me." She was obviously too unstable, her behavior too erratic.

"Your hopes of keeping a low profile are well and truly blown, no matter that it was just a local event. But it might be beneficial to be so visible. Ming won't be able to let you disappear silently now." Not that Kaleb would ever let him get his hands on her.

"That is not what I meant. I just forced you to act in a way that may have severe consequences for your public standing."

"I don't have a habit of letting anyone force me to do things." Plain arrogance coated every word.

A new, shocking possibility shot up in her brain: "You mean you planned all this?"

"Not exactly, no. But sooner or later I would have had to position myself on the topic of Silence anyway. And that way it certainly boosted my popularity with the humans and probably even the changelings. You did extraordinary work."

Alja would have given almost anything to understand what was going on in that handsome head of his. She had either misjudged the situation completely or he was planning so far in advance, she couldn't even count how many steps he was ahead. She didn't know what to say, how to act.

"Do you require sleep now?" he asked next. First he'd get her somewhere safe. Then he'd plan his further steps.

"I can manage a few hours longer. What do you need me for?" No provocation. No hint of emotion. She had transformed back into the perfect, Silent Psy he had met first.

"I just want to show you something. You would probably consider it beautiful."

For a moment her Psy façade slipped and she looked really puzzled. Then she pulled herself together and slightly shook her head. "Why would you do that?" Suspicion uncurled in her like an insidious snake. Of course this was not over.

"As I understand it, you require places in nature for your balance. If I am not mistaken I can provide such a thing. Just open your shields for a teleport."

Alja was still confused by the sudden offer and more than skeptical about the whole turn of events, but she was also intrigued by the outlook to see what this man considered to be beautiful. She crossed her arms inconspicuously checking the blades under her sleeves. Then she allowed the teleport.

A moment later the car was gone and they stood in the middle of a scenery that could have been painted right out of Alja's dreams. They had teleported in front of a small log cabin, set on the edge of a larch forest, half-hidden between the trees. It faced a wide sloping meadow that was covered with thousands of small wild flowers and scattered bushes of which some were blooming too. Even in the near dark of the early morning she could distinguish the different colors of the sleeping buds. They must be vibrant in the daylight. After about two hundred feet the field ended abruptly and dropped away into a steep, rocky canyon. On the other side she could make out the dark outline of tall wooded mountains against the eastern sky that was beginning to brighten with the colors of dawn. The landscape was wild, the smell of the wood and the flowers intoxicating to her senses. It was impossible to hold back her enthusiasm. "This is breathtaking! Where are we?" she exclaimed.

"A place of mine in the Altai Mountains. It is one of the few areas secluded enough so I can exercise my abilities on a larger scale."

Kaleb's voice was calm, almost warm. She didn't even mind the logical explanation. She had missed the real, raw nature for so long. She took a few steps into the field to stand close to one of the bushes that looked like overgrown lavender. Gently she touched one of the slender wisps with its small velvet petals, stroked her fingers across one small leaf that was covered in velvet just the same. It smelled deliciously of sage. Amazed she lifted her fingers to look at them. She was feeling the sensations again. Nothing was left of the numbness. Then she turned to let her gaze sweep over the forest that was still bathed entirely in the shadows of the night. Only a few stars were visible between the crowns of the trees. "I bet you could see the Milky Way from here, if the sky weren't so clouded today. – Oh!" The moment she said it, the cloud layer parted and the clouds drifted out of sight with unnatural speed.

Kaleb didn't even think about it. If she wanted to see stars, he'd give them to her. And the amazed smile on her face was the most beautiful reward he could ever ask for. For a moment even the dark veil lifted off her eyes and they looked a little less haunted. Instead there was a strange kind of need in them, almost yearning.

"It looks so clear out here. Just like the Net," she uttered astonished. "So beautiful. So cold." At the last words she'd lowered her gaze and looked directly in his face.

He felt stripped to the soul by her look. He slammed up all the remnants of his battered conditioning to suppress the impulse to close the distance between them and crush her to him at once. He longed so badly to end this agony of acting as if he was still the man every one believed him to be, although Alja had changed him to the core in the course of weeks. But no, not to the core – that was the place where the monster slept, untouched even by Alja's influence.

Alja knew she was breaking every rule she ever learned by allowing her to feel so much for this man. But how could she not fall for him when he did things like this? Not for the first time he provided her with the sensations she so craved for. He had awakened her senses when she'd believed them dead after the tortures of her training. And now he'd taken her here, showed her the stars… He accepted and respected her emotionality more than anyone else ever had. And she'd be a fool not to notice that their interactions had long surpassed usual Psy etiquette.

But why did he let that happen? Yes, why did he do all this?

A strange cold crept up her spine. She had revealed so much of her nature to him already, although she'd been taught all her life that showing emotion or even affection was practically an invitation to be used by any Silent Psy. And she'd know by now if he wasn't exactly that, if she'd just dared to open up her empathic senses.

She couldn't hide any more.

Carefully she reached out with her empathy – to brush up against a wall of ice so cold, her skin would have stuck to it if she had touched it in the physical world. Her empathy flinched at the sting of the cold and drew back behind her protective shields. All her hopes shattered once more.

Kaleb saw the subtle change in her expression at once. Something dark entered her features. Something he'd never seen before on her. He couldn't tell what it was. He hated not being able to read her. "What is it?"

"Why do you do all this?" The faintest hint of suspicion in her tone. And why did she suddenly seem so distant, almost cold?

"Do what?" A guarded reply while he realized that he had gone too far. He had followed his need to be close to her too obviously. She must have noticed. Of course she had.

"Don't insult me by thinking I am as stupid as your human fan club back in that ball room. You know exactly what you're doing. A Ball. Dancing. This place. You're practically playing every trick in the book to seduce me." Her voice had turned into a sharp, icy staccato.

_Is it working?_ He wanted to ask. He had no idea where the provocative streak came from. Maybe she was rubbing off on him.

Alarmed he realized that that was probably exactly what she did – _My ability doesn't break Silence; it melts it away, very slowly but barely reversible once it's done. _He'd been wrong! She didn't have to be close to him all the time to influence him. Maybe she just counted on doing some damage to his conditioning and let natural emotions do the rest. That would explain why she always tried to bring the topic of emotions up. She tried to manipulate him, because her empathy wasn't strong enough to do the trick alone. But he would not be defeated that easily. He didn't have to admit how far she'd brought him. Not yet. He wouldn't risk everything for a woman who might be just a paving stone on his road to downfall, set up by the enemies that tried to sneak up on him as he was gaining more and more power. And his loyalty was still bound to another. One with the face of a dead girl. He mustn't forget that again. "You feel. It is logical to make you emotionally attached to me to secure your loyalty and trust." He hated every word he said. But if he didn't push her away now he knew he'd have lost. And he hadn't come so far to be brought down by emotion. He had to stay in control.

Alja hadn't expected that honesty. It couldn't have been worse if he'd punched her in the face. Actually she'd have preferred that to his answer. She had been used as a tool, as a weapon all her life. But this left her speechless. She didn't even know what to feel. He had been manipulating her all the time and the fucking bastard had the guts to tell her to her face. His arrogance really was limitless.

Something inside her snapped.

She was so done playing his game. If he wanted emotions he'd get them.

_He played with you. He tried to beat you at your own game. Make him pay. Just push him a little. Take what you want. You know it worked the last time. He'll even like it. _

The wicked voice rejoiced in her anger, drew strength on it. And she was more than tempted to follow its advice. It would have been a relief to take her frustration out on him in a very physical way. And she was not thinking of a sparring match. It only fueled her anger that she still wanted him so badly it hurt. But she would not stoop so low. _He won't fucking dare to ever put his hands on me again. _"Fine. So you figured that out," she spat out.

Her words were darts of ice. He had never seen her so cold. And at that moment he understood that this cold had nothing to do with Silence. She was angry. No, that was not the word – she was furious. And after what he'd just said she had no reason to hide it. He had been so caught up in his paranoid theories he hadn't wasted one thought to how she must react when she was innocent of consciously destroying his Silence. But she didn't stop there. Instead she stepped up to him until they stood toe to toe.

The moment Alja got close to him her body started to reverberate with the echo of their dance, with the memory of that one stolen kiss. And the suggestions of her wicked part were quickly gaining appeal again. "So tell me, how much attachment do you want? How much further would you go?"

She leaned even closer, lifted her face to his until her eyes were boring into his. He could feel her breath like a hot caress across his face. Lush, red lips were all but touching his – a sensual invitation and a dark menace in one. And still she went on.

"How much more _touch_ can your precious Silence take?" She lifted her hand and traced the skin along his jaw with two fingers. Then she let them slide down the side of his neck to linger just above the collar of his shirt her gaze still holding his with fierce determination.

Every muscle in his body locked in place. He must not touch her. But oh, she was beautiful when she was mad. He fisted his hands until his knuckles turned white and clenched his jaw so hard his teeth sent darts of pain into his head. They barely registered beside the raging dissonance that had been warning him all evening and would no longer be pushed aside. Suddenly, just for a flickering moment the lines of Alja's face blurred, contorted into the features of the Swan girl. For once the image helped him control his reaction. But he didn't dare to move a finger while Alja kept on tormenting him with her closeness and her words alike.

"Or are you just gonna tease? Do you think that will be enough?" _He lied. He wants you. Just help him along a little!_ And he really did react. Alja felt his heartbeat accelerate under the fingers she still held over his pulse. But she also sensed his body stiffening at her words. Obviously there was a limit to the sensations his conditioning could take after all. "Yeah, that's what I thought. We both know you're not gonna deliver." With that she dropped the hand but found herself unable to move away from him.

Kaleb heard the deepest contempt in her words. He had still no idea what to say.

"You don't want to play on that weakness of me ever again. You might not like the result! Emotions are _my_ territory and you will actually _feel_ the consequences, if you ever try to beat me there."

_Wow you're threatening Kaleb Krychek! That's an outrageously stupid idea even for you! But I think I like it._

_Oh shut the fuck up! _Alja replied angrily, although she knew there was no way of silencing that other part of herself right now.

"Threats don't work well on me. I usually see them as a challenge." Kaleb replied finally, returning the threat like he had always done in such situations. But it came out halfhearted, because really there was just one wish forming in his mind: _Do it, Alja! Project! Make me lose control like you did before! Give me an excuse to touch you again!_

Alja knew she should back down immediately. She couldn't. A dark and desperate desire held her firmly in place. _Come on, just one little push. That's all it'll take._

Kaleb stopped breathing. One more breath of her flowers-and-rain scent and he'd show her exactly how far he was willing to go. The woman had a temper that made him want to take her right then and there in the grass – like an animal. But probably that was what she liked – _cardinal women are quite partial to predatory changelings. _The memory of her words made his hold on his Tk slip. Without thinking he directed it away from her the moment it started to spin out of control, although her shields would probably absorb it effortlessly. He wouldn't risk hurting her, no matter how jealous or how aroused he was.

"What could you do to me that hasn't been done to me a thousand times before?" she asked. What would hurt worse than what he'd just said to her? No! She would not be hurt! It was bad enough that he had the power to make her so angry. So she let her next words drip with the bitterest sarcasm. "Oh right. You could kill me. I've had _that _experience only seven times before. – But you can't break me. I am already broken in so many pieces you'd only cut yourself with the shards." She hadn't wanted that bitterness to come out. And it was a lie. She couldn't risk dying before she had completed the work she'd been born for, before she'd helped her people survive. She needed to keep it together until she found a way – or lost every hope that she'd ever succeed.

Finally she found at least a little self-control, abruptly turned around and stomped off towards the edge of the field. Upset as she was she didn't notice the sudden, violent gush of wind that shook the crowns of the trees even hundreds of feet away in the otherwise still night. She just had to get away, try to calm down. But it seemed impossible.

How had she ever dared to hope, to dream? How could she have been so stupid? She was even madder at herself than at him. She'd lost her way, neglected her purpose for her personal desires. And there was no way she could tune any of those feelings down. Desperation, anger and a very different kind of heat blended to an explosive mix that let the darkness inside her well up with merciless force. It was about to crush all her resistance. _Look where your goodness has gotten you! Don't you want to let me take care of it? Imagine what you could have…_Then her dark part chose to torment her with a fantasy so vivid, she could almost feel the sensations on her skin: Kaleb stepping close behind her, putting his hands on her waist. Then letting them slip into the sides of her dress, his hands a rough, burning caress over her ribs. His breath licking like a flame across the side of her neck before he laid his lips on her pulse, the scent of thunderstorm and darkness filling her lungs, the heat of a hard male body pressed to her back, his hands moving further up until his thumbs touched the undersides of her breasts…

When she heard the rustling of slow, measured steps in the grass behind her, she spun around, startled. Had she projected those feelings? She half hoped she had and her dark part had taken control to relieve her pain, her hunger. But Kaleb stopped at a short distance, even hesitated before he spoke.

Kaleb was beyond confused, beyond perplexed. But this was not his brain malfunctioning, he had simply no idea how to deal with a situation like this. Until he met Alja his life had been ruled by simple logic. Now emotions messed up everything. He didn't know for sure if she hadn't projected but what Alja had just done, had put a new set of major cracks in his conditioning. And the feelings that were gushing out were even worse than the pain of the dissonance that accompanied them. Desire, frustration, conflicting loyalties and guilt collided inside him so hard he didn't know whether he was coming or going. The only thing he knew for certain was that he had to make up for the terrible mistake he'd just made. "Alja wait! That was not what I meant." Another hesitation. "I was just trying to win your friendship."

Alja registered that somehow his voice sounded strained. She was still too mad to care. Probably he was playing with her anyway. Again she let him see only contempt instead of the hurt she really felt. "You're not that naïve! Even you must know it doesn't work like this. Friendship is something mutual. You have to give something back."

"I can give you something: Protection from Ming and from rehabilitation. I can give you power – should you ever want it, and I'll provide you with an environment that is adjusted to your needs. I just thought it was easier for you on an emotional level." _Not good enough_, Kaleb thought. He wouldn't have believed himself a whit. Yet Alja seemed to calm down slowly.

"Maybe you should decide whether you want to drive me away or whether you want emotional attachment." Her sarcasm was losing its bite and she already felt her resistance crumble under the insurgent hope that after all there still might be a chance that there was more to Kaleb than cold and darkness. "Just tell me what you want. I think I can handle logic better than you can handle emotion."

_I want you to be mine. I want you to love a monster. _"Soon we will have an open civil war, which may lead to a revolution. I need your unrestricted loyalty and I need to know that I can trust you. That's what friendship is about, isn't it?"

"Yes it is. And your honesty earns you more of it than anything else." Alja heard herself say. Why was it so hard to stay cold or at least angry? Against everything she'd been taught she had always able to trust her feelings. But now they seemed to betray her. When Kaleb said these things, talked about friendship as if he understood it, she could almost see the boy the NetMind had showed her – the one who had saved a stranger, a human. The one who had seemed so alone yet strangely fit in that scene of chaos and destruction. "But you don't need my friendship. You have my loyalty as long as you don't betray the Arrows. My first loyalty will always be to them."

"But will _you_ trust _me_?" There were so many things he wanted to say, yet he had to stick to what was logical, what was expected. So he found himself discussing on a political level with Alja again instead of revealing the tumult she had unleashed inside his chest. And it was right. The political situation was what mattered. Soon he would have to face the consequences of his unguarded behavior at the ball.

"If I have to judge by your actions…You seem to have some code of honor. You don't hurt the innocent or the loyal. That might deserve some trust. But you're not very open with your motives, so I cannot be sure."

So the Arrows had been watching his steps very closely. Of course they had. They wouldn't have risked easily trading Ming for another Councilor who betrayed them. "There is not much you don't know, since you tricked my attitude towards Silence out of me. – You know I want power. But I will not abuse it like most of the other Councilors do."

"Ah, it's that old motive. The young, ambitious hero who wants to do it better than the ones in charge. But how can you Kaleb? How can you be better than them, if there's nothing good left in you? If you don't know mercy or compassion?" _Oh, Alja if there is any way to talk yourself into any more trouble you will find it, s_he thought almost resigned. Then again, it might no longer matter anyway.

Alja was pushing him again to discuss that damn topic with her. But he couldn't simply cut her off this time. Not when he wanted to preserve that fragile peace he'd just bought back. "I can _because_ I know neither compassion nor mercy. I'm not blinded by emotion. And I don't need goodness. It is simple logic. The power play of the other Councilors has brought us to the verge of chaos and it would be illogical to proceed like them and risk a Net wide collapse." Only he would tear apart the Net himself, if the pained, twisted creature he'd trapped inside his mind ever found a way out.

"And what will you give them when Silence falls? Another cage? Another Protocol that forces them to deny half of what they are?" Alja knew she should have shut up minutes ago. But he had hit a soft spot. This was what she had been living for, what she must survive for at all costs.

"You tell me empath! Tell me what I should do in your opinion. What do you want me to do?" He already knew what she'd say. She'd try to push him further into breaking Silence, if she hadn't already sensed how far he'd gone. But she stayed mute for several minutes, only to surprise him with her answer.

"I don't know. I want to see my people free from Silence and I want to help them to survive without it. But I don't know how." How had she come to lay open the deepest desires of her heart to this man who would very likely tear out that heart if ever given a chance? It _must_ be insanity catching up on her.

The woman was the ultimate enigma, Kaleb thought, at a loss how to interpret her reactions again. "I was expecting something more political. For example another lecture on the importance of abolishing Silence."

Of course! He wouldn't even understand. For him everything was about power. "Who do you think I am? A rebel? Maybe even the infamous Ghost himself?" _Oh great Alja! Just give him ideas!_

An awkward pause while they both wished – for very different reasons – that the mysterious rebel would not have been mentioned.

It was Alja who spoke first: "You're giving me way too much credit. I don't have the power to change the Net." According to the NetMind she should have. But she didn't. And she couldn't hide the deep regret it caused her.

"But you want that power. Is that why you're here?" His eyes were piercing her with a look that showed her exactly what power she was dealing with.

"No, I don't think your brand of power would help change the Net the way it needs to be changed." _First threats now insults? Are you trying to get us killed?_ For once the wicked voice was right. "I'm here because at one time the Squad thought you the safest option. I'm just trying to survive." And she was doing hell of a job not being able to resist a man as dangerous as Kaleb. But she had provoked him even threatened him and still she was unscathed. Had anyone else ever gotten this close to him?

But Kaleb wasn't ready to let it go this time. "No there's more. For example your empathy, it influences you much more than you admit." Alja hesitated for a moment. Then something in her expression changed although not one muscle in her face had visibly moved. For a fleeting moment he glimpsed an unbelievable softness in her that made him long to simply pull her into his arms and never let her go. This time he automatically started to suppress the impact of the dissonance, because it started to annoy him.

_One more step towards the abyss. _

Then Alja answered with one of those challenging smiles he was slowly getting addicted to.

"There is no answer that you'd believe _and _that wouldn't get me into more trouble, is there?"

It made him want to smile too, the way she evaded the question as elegantly as only Alja could. "You're right. Forget I asked. I guess that much trust takes more time."

"It does." Time she was running out of. "Speaking of time: Shouldn't we get back?" He had guessed too much already. If they'd talk any longer she was in danger of spilling her most treasured secrets.

Kaleb understood that she wanted out of this conversation. And as intrigued as he was by all her secrets, he should get some distance and assess what damage his idiotic behavior had caused. "Yes, I have to attend to some matters. – But you're tired. There's a bed in the cabin. You could sleep here for one of your cycles."

What the hell did he want now? "It takes you a millisecond to get me back. And I'd really like to change. I am not used to this type of clothing." It made her feel vulnerable, not having her practical cargo pants and combat boots.

"That is not a problem. I can get you any of your usual clothes and some food if you want. There's even a shower in the cabin. Or maybe you want to wait and watch the sunrise. I am sure you would find it appealing."

Then she understood and her emotions welled up once more. But this time it wasn't anger that caused a bitter taste on her tongue. It was disappointment. "I thought we were past these games. Don't try to sell me a prison as a reward."

"This is not a prison, Alja. It's only until I have checked our security is still airtight. And I won't…"

"Of course not, it's for my protection," she snapped. "After tonight locking me up in your Moscow HQ won't be enough to keep me out of harm's way. It's alright. It was my own fault that brought me in the situation. I guess I have to be thankful." But her renewed temper was trailing away into resignation at the end of the sentence.

Did the woman have to be so damn stubborn all the time? Then again, he wouldn't have trusted himself either – he didn't, in fact. "I was about to say I won't put Tk shields on the cabin. And I am fully aware Vasic is able to get you out, if I don't. I am _asking_ you to stay."

How could she resist, when he did all the right things? – Even if he did them for all the wrong reasons. And it wasn't so bad after all: Only days ago she'd have given a lot to be closer to nature. "Alright. I'll abide by your judgment and stay as long as it takes."

The answer held no hint of provocation, instead it sounded almost – yielding. She was truly giving in. Kaleb realized he'd been drawn to her challenging nature from the start, but when he glimpsed that fleeting softness in her, it melted him from the inside out. Because Alja didn't yield, Alja wasn't soft for anyone. It felt like a gift that she would let him see that side of her.


	32. Chapter 32

**Chapter 32**

When she was finally alone Alja sat down on the simple bed in the cabin. From the inside it was a small but high tech Psy accommodation unit. Alja had spent a lot of time in similar units and she'd never stopped hating them.

The wooden walls were covered with isolation panels and laced with security systems as she guessed from the extensive control panel beside the door. Other than the bed there was only the necessary furniture: A desk with a chair on the wall opposite to the bed and a small cupboard for nutrition bars and drinking water beside it. One section of the room was divided as a wet room entirely made of dull, stainless steel while everything else was colored in the same well-known grey. The only spots of color were the checkered blue and white curtains that covered the two small windows. From the outside they turned the cabin into an almost romantic cliché. Inside they seemed strangely out of place. Just like Alja in her evening dress.

Suddenly feeling cold she switched on the laz generator beside the bed. It emitted a cozy warmth at once. But nothing else. Of course no one had added the artificial flames the humans and changelings used on their generators to make them look like a real fire. The visual effects had no function. They were useless to the Psy.

Everything here felt wrong to her, because it was a piece of the world she wanted to escape set right in the middle of all the beauty of nature, of the world she longed to escape to. It felt like a sacrilege. And still it was a part of her world too and even more important: it was a piece of Kaleb's world. And that fact made it impossible for Alja to hate it. This place belonged only to him. Probably not many people knew about it, if any at all. Being there alone felt strangely intimate and Alja couldn't help but picture Kaleb sleeping in the very bed she sat on.

Before she knew it her hand stroked over the cotton of the simple, gray covers. And she wondered whether they still held his scent.

_Very bad idea!_

She jumped up and paced across the room trying to give her mind a different direction just to find herself staring at the shower in the wet room the next moment. The stainless steel didn't look so bleak, when she thought of Kaleb's naked body under a sprinkle of hot water. Glistening drops of water rolling from inky black strands of hair on his forehead, caressing chiseled features and sensual lips, dropping down on a hard, male chest to shatter on smooth skin that stretched over firm pectorals. Streams of water running along the hard lines of his muscled front following the vee shaped by his lower abdominals, down to… _Don't think about it! Don't think about it!_ She tried to reign herself in. The fantasy vanished to the back of her mind, but her whole skin felt suddenly so hot, she wondered how she'd ever thought she'd need the laz fire.

When she turned around to step back into the room she saw a selection of her usual clothes had appeared neatly piled on top of the bed and her boots stood in front of it. A second later her toilet bag and the container for her contacts popped up beside her clothes. And again instead of being annoyed that Kaleb invaded her privacy like that, all she could see was the comprehensiveness with which he took care of her.

She had no defenses against him. Everything he'd done might have been precisely calculated. He'd practically told her she was but a pawn in his schemes. Only her heart had stopped caring along the way. It made her wonder: Would it always be like this for her? That any pleasure would be tainted with pain, any hope with distrust?


	33. Chapter 33

**Chapter 33**

The news hit San Francisco in the afternoon; barely two hours after the event had taken place. When Hawke called him to his office Judd was already on his way, having expected it.

"Can you tell me anything about what the hell is going on with your people?" That was all the greeting Judd got when he entered the room.

"They're no longer my people." Some time ago it wouldn't have mattered. Judd would have given the answer he knew Hawke expected at once.

But the other man understood, was even satisfied with the change. "Right. I'm sorry Judd. Of course you're one of us. It's just the surprise. Krychek has always been a wild card, but this was really unexpected. So far it's only media reports and I need to know what the consequences will be, especially for us. Do you have any idea what he's planning?" Judd had revealed his knowledge of the Ghost's identity to Hawke some time ago. The alpha had agreed to keep the knowledge between the two of them until it became necessary for the good of the pack to share it. For now it would only endanger anyone who knew.

"No, I was surprised myself. It is still in the middle of the night over there. So I guess we are reacting sooner than the local population since it's daytime here. I already tried to get to him, but I am still waiting for an answer."

"Well, this looks as if your contact might be very differently employed right now." He pointed at a couple of printouts of some news articles all of which showed pictures of Kaleb Krychek dancing very intimately with a woman Hawke had never seen before, although he'd been observing the Council superstructure for quite a while. And all of them had headlines of a varying degree of ridiculousness. One of the editors had even managed to put little pink hearts around the dancing couple. Obviously the tabloids were in raptures about the whole thing. "But that yellow press crap isn't going to get us very far. All we know to this point that for some reason a Councilor chose to give an unusual, public display of a rather emotional activity."

"The first conclusion might be that Kaleb finally chose sides concerning the fall of Silence and that the split in the Council is about to get officially announced to the public. But it might just be a clever distraction, while the real thing is played out somewhere else. In any case Kaleb just sped up the open outbreak of the war significantly," Judd replied calmly.

"Sounds much more plausible than this bullshit, that's already all over the internet. Why are those vultures always faster than the reputable media?" With that he threw the whole pile of tabloid prints in the wastebasket. "Any other insights in your side?"

"I think I know the woman." A short hesitation was all that was left of the conflict Judd had once fought over the loyalties from his past and the ones to the pack that was his future. "She's an Arrow, specialized on dealing with humans and changelings." He let that sink in for a moment before he continued. "She is probably very good at putting up any sort of show. And that might be exactly why Krychek chose her."

"What does specialized mean?" Hawke was not overly thrilled to learn that the Psy had people who knew how to 'deal' with them.

"I don't know exactly. It's what I've been told, when I met her. She was the only Arrow I ever met who worked undercover with changelings." Judd had never questioned the encounter before. It belonged to another life, one he didn't want to recall too often.

"Impossible, we'd smell her out from a mile." Changelings could distinguish Psy by their metallic smell, the scent of Silence. And all Arrows were Silent to the extreme.

"Yes, I've never thought about that…" Judd hadn't known about the smell back when he'd worked for the Squad. "Maybe it has something to do with her shields. You can't see it on the pics, because she's wearing contacts but she's a cardinal."

"Then she's probably good enough to break into a changeling mind to make them believe she's human." Until now Hawke had thought their shields were too strong to be broken other than by a lethal blow of telepathy. He decided he liked that woman just as much as the guy she'd danced with.

"No, I meant she is a cardinal shield. It's her designation. I don't think she has many offensive skills. I had to take over her mission twice, because she was not up to do the killing. – Come to think about it… she was rather unusual for an Arrow." But strangely she hadn't awakened the slightest interest when he'd worked with her. He'd contact Aden about her later.

"That is not very comforting." Frustrated Hawke ran a hand through his hair. Everything Judd knew just raised more questions. "If this had anything to do with the rebellion, wouldn't he have told you?"

"I don't know. For all that matters he still is a wild card, even for me."

At that moment the desk-phone chimed, announcing a video call.

"That was fast!" Hawke exclaimed when he saw the caller ID.

Judd stepped out of the camera range before the alpha took the call.

"Selenka. I already thought about calling you, but it must be late in Moscow."

"Yes, but this can't wait. If you were about to call, I assume you already heard what happened?"

"The pictures are spreading over the internet like –" Hawke broke off noticing something he hadn't before: Selenka sat at her usual desk, only he had never seen the other alpha dressed in green Satin and wearing make-up. She usually preferred practical clothing. The pieces clicked together fast. "Wait, you were there!?"

"Yes. I can tell you first-hand what happened, but honestly I haven't got a clue what is going on behind the stage. I was hoping on your Psy contacts may have some ideas." So that was why she had called first although the whole thing had taken place in her territory.

"Fair deal. Ok with you if you start?" It was most logical for Selenka to give her report first, but the other alpha was by many years Hawke's senior and he didn't want to make the mistake to seem disrespectful. And Selenka was intelligent enough to know it wasn't a sign of weakness or submission.

"Krychek is known for playing a show for the other races. That's why half of the human population is falling for him and – I'm ashamed to say – some of our females too. Tonight he brought that woman, who did basically the same but especially to the men." She paused and drew a breath, while her hand rubbed shortly over her forehead. Surprised Hawke realized it was a gesture to contain anger. "One of my senior soldiers obviously thought with his dick and found it appropriate to ask her to dance. – The idiot! I'll have him running for the novices for a month!"

That explained the anger, Hawke thought. "He endangered the business connection you're forming with Krychek."

"Yes, that and even if this was all part of a greater scheme, I'm not fond of getting in any way connected to being the catalyst for the escalation of their war. – Anyway that was how it started. I have no idea why she didn't flat out refuse to dance or why Krychek intervened by cutting in. Until tonight I didn't even know a Psy could dance at all."

"Some of them are full of surprises." Hawke allowed himself a short memory of the night before, when Sienna had proven once more, that dancing was by far not the end of a Psy's sensual arsenal.

The enigmatic statement accompanied by a smug smile on the younger wolf's face had Selenka speculating, if the rumors about Hawke's mate were true. But the relationship between their packs wasn't yet stable enough to ask openly. "Well, Krychek certainly is, but tonight – I'm not sure whether those two were acting more for the public or for each other."

"What do you mean?"

"It was hard to smell anything in that room full of perfumed people of all three races, but my soldier was pretty sure the woman didn't stink like they usually do. And from the looks of it… the air between them was practically burning!" The older woman shook her head, as if she couldn't believe her own words.

Neither could Hawke. "You realize what you're suggesting, right?" It was public knowledge that Kaleb Krychek was considered to be one of those on the very far end of the Silence continuum.

"Yeah, I know how it sounds. But you should have seen it. I'll eat my own tail if there's not something going on between them."

Hawke took a short glance at Judd, who equally shook his head. "That's probably exactly the reaction they were aiming for. My sources say that the woman is a very able actress and trained in deceiving non-Psy."

"You have interesting sources. Care to share?"

"Not yet. But if you ever get out of Russia for an alliance meeting we might discuss that too."

With the Psy war on the rise it was about time to build worldwide networks. But similar to their initial negotiations with BlackSea Selenka hadn't yet agreed to a meeting on neutral ground.


	34. Chapter 34

**Chapter 34**

The first thing Kaleb had done, after teleporting her personal things to Alja, had been speaking to his higher ranking staff. If he wanted them to believe tonight's incident was a planned action, he couldn't let them wait too long for an explanation. Many of them were still working, as they always did, when they knew he had a public appearance and was likely to come by at the HQ afterwards.

"I have taken the opportunity to take the whole situation to a public level. It will force the other Councilors to show their hands." He had told them. "Our preparation for any form of violent escalation is at a peak now. It would only strain our resources to engage in their shadow play any longer."

Most of them hadn't seemed to have any objections to his actions. They expected the unexpected. He was glad he had always taken care to act politically unpredictable. Otherwise the situation would have been a complete disaster. Now he might even profit from the insecurity he must have caused everyone, including the other former Councilors. Nikita had been the only one bold enough to contact him so far. In their short telepathic conversation he had told her basically the same he had told his staff minus the part about the war preparations.

"Was that your official statement on the Silence situation?" she had asked.

"I suppose it will be interpreted as such. But we both know this war is not about Silence. It is about power as it always has been. Only when the power structure is steady again, will the Net have a chance to stabilize. Then we will see about Silence." A comment that wouldn't endanger his alliance with Nikita yet. She had however made a long thoughtful pause as if she thought differently. And it might be she had insights similar to the ones Alja had offered him. After all she hadn't cut all connections to her defected, empathic daughter – contrary to what she had the public believe. That might be helpful in the future but for now it was enough, if they all racked their brains about what he was up to. They all thought him capable of sparking a revolution to gain power in the ensuing chaos, which was very close to his original goals. But keeping those hidden was no longer the most important thing. What mattered more was to keep Alja out of the spotlight as far as possible.

* * *

Judd's message got to him while he was going over some of the media reports Silver had already assembled for him. The reports and occasional images floated across the screen of his built-in desk monitor. Barely anything caught his notice. The public knew nothing of importance.

Talking to his fellow rebel would be harder. Judd wouldn't be satisfied with so easy an explanation, knowing him much better than most others and having some claim on knowing where he was leading the rebellion.

He took his time answering, diving into the slipstreams of the Net first to evaluate the reaction of the Psy population. Confusion, whispers of rebellion, insecurity. Nothing that could be dangerous for him yet, but it might be the last straw, the spark leading to a chain reaction that might forever decide the fate of the Psy. And he hadn't even truly lost control – yet. Everything he'd ever learned about himself and the nature of his powers told him to stop, to draw back behind the safe chill of Silence.

And he tried. He had honed his conditioning well enough that he might be able to keep it functioning at an acceptable level for weeks even if it was crumbling all over the place. The problem was that he lost all will to do so the moment he slipped back to the physical plane and his eyes were drawn to one of the pictures that had the media going nuts right now. It was a good shot of him and Alja dancing, her body practically cast on his. Her skin was pure light kissed with gold against the dark blue swirl of her dress that caressed her figure in the motion of the dance. And his hand was pressing a little too hard on that skin.

Possessive. That was how it looked.

_Good. Shall the fucking changelings know that one is mine. _

He was surprised at his own thoughts. He should be thinking about how to turn the situation to his favor, berate himself that he let things tumble out of control like this. But all that was on his mind was a deep satisfaction at having made a public claim on Alja. He began to understand why the kind of feelings he developed for Alja were so often related to insanity even by those used to emotion.

He wondered if she already knew what an impact their little show had made. He also started itching to get back to her although he knew she was safe. No one would find her in the Net. And only he knew the cabin in the mountains even existed. He had transported installed the whole compound there with Tk.

To his relief Judd agreed to an immediate meeting the moment he answered his message. Still the Ex-Arrow took some time to get to the old warehouse, since he refused to teleport, saving his energies for possible emergencies.

"You're expecting an explanation." He let the Ghost greet him from the shadows. Stealthy like the assassin he still was, Kaleb had only noticed Judd when he entered the empty hall. Would Alja be able to sneak up to him like that too?

"Yes." Judd knew the Ghost didn't consider himself accountable to anyone. He was a lone warrior who kept only fleeting alliances that were useful to reach goals only known to himself. But they had worked together for a long time and… "I need to know if we're still on the same side."

"Probably more so than ever." A voice flat and toneless, wrapped in Silence.

But then the notorious rebel shifted in the shadows. Unusual. He had always preferred to be rather motionless. "Then why didn't you tell me what you were planning in advance?"

"Because I didn't plan it. I just took an opportunity." A slightly different lie for every party. He had been playing deception for long enough to know this house of cards wouldn't hold for long. Sooner rather than later something would have to give.

"To do what? Accelerate the war?" The former assassin didn't bother to hide the suspicion in his tone.

And Kaleb knew he'd been right. Judd wasn't as easily to please as the others. "The Net's destabilizing. We're running out of time. The process of –" A short hesitation, while Kaleb tried to avoid the word 'war' for reasons he didn't fully understand himself. "change needed to be sped up."

"You're ready to take the rebellion into the open?"

"Not yet. But I intend to be credible once I do."

Another motion in the darkness. Hadn't he known better, Judd would have thought the Ghost was nervous. "Credible?… this was never about Silence. Not for you."

"It is for the populace." Another pause. "And even my priorities might change with time."

When he answered Judd kept his voice as even as the man he was talking to, but a new, alarming possibility was unfolding before him and it was not a comforting thought. "Does that mean you're considering a breach of the Protocol?"

Kaleb knew he was taking a big risk by even hinting at a possible degeneration of his conditioning, but Judd was the only one who could maybe offer a solution. "Allowing a certain level of emotion might be inevitable."

Another enigmatic answer. But it told Judd that something had fundamentally changed about the Ghost. Was this the beginning of his descent into insanity? "You cannot control this once it's started."

"You could."

Judd went silent for several minutes. When he spoke he no longer hid the concern in his voice. The Ghost might not understand it, but he had just asked for a friend's advice. "I don't want to deny you what it's given to me. But you said yourself, breaking Silence may never be an option for you. You should be very careful." That was nothing new. And Judd knew the Ghost was waiting for something else. The answer would be a great gift of trust. One Judd wasn't sure he was ready to give. "You can try to allow emotions up to a certain level. It may work as long as you leave the second layer of dissonance intact."

"Second layer?" Kaleb had never read the term in any of the file or article the Council had on the conditioning process.

"That's what I call the fail-safes that short circuit your powers or turn them against you when you feel too strongly. The moment the second layer starts troubling you, you need to retreat from any form of emotional stimuli and rebuilt your shields as we have been taught during conditioning." Judd remembered the pictures from the tabloids. That level of intimate contact it must have cost him. He remembered what Selenka had said: _I'll eat my own tail if there's not something going on between them. _Impossible. "Or is it already affecting you?"

When Judd explained, Kaleb remembered the constructs that had indeed once been built into his conditioning. The part of the Protocol that was added for those with offensive abilities. "No, it doesn't affect me," he answered truthfully. It couldn't. He had removed all components of what Judd called the second layer when he was seventeen. He had never thought about them again, never needed them until now. At the time the pain controls and the memory of a life being snuffed out by his power had been enough. He had never wanted to feel again. But now… He realized he might have made a fatal mistake. "What if I remove that second layer?" he asked, although he already knew the answer.

"You'd have to be insane to do that. Without it you'd be a loaded gun with no safety catch." With the term _gun_ not even beginning to cover it. _Weapon of mass destruction_ would be more apt, Judd thought.

What followed was absolute silence from the man opposite to him. After a long pause the Ghost spoke again.

"Thank you. This kind of information is hard to come by inside the Net." Because no one was supposed to know how to disable any part of the conditioning. And for good reason as Kaleb learned with every new fissure in his.

Judd noticed that the Ghost's voice held not a hint of disappointment or frustration at having his hopes at a live beyond Silence crushed to dust by probably the only man he came even close to trusting. Of course not. He was still Silent after all.

Silent but considering.

Judd knew he could – probably should leave it at that. He had to make a decision. He could try to contain the Ghosts state of Silence and sanity as long as possible, or take a leap of faith and give hope to a friend, who was the image of what he could have easily become himself.

It wasn't easy. Even after all the change he'd been through, he was still new to friendship and trust. And he couldn't ask those he usually relied on. But he could work with logic: What would Brenna do? And suddenly the answer was easy: Brenna would always help a friend, even if it was a risk. It was strange, Judd thought, that the Ghost would probably never know that he was about to be indebted to a woman who had suffered the most savage cruelties by his very own mentor.

There was only one thing he needed to know: "Are you still considering that one person I asked you about?" _One person you do not want to die_.

Kaleb felt the sharp bite of some new, yet strangely familiar feeling, as the other man reminded him of the quest he had pushed aside over his obsession with Alja. But he hadn't forgotten. "Yes."

"That woman you were dancing with…"

"No. She has nothing to do with this except providing the opportunity I was talking about."

Judd couldn't dare to ask any further. It hadn't occurred to him before, but in the twisted state of affairs, he had to talk to Aden or Vasic first, make sure Kaleb even knew he had spun one of the Net's deadliest assassins across the dance floor.

The 'yes' had to be enough. One person even the Ghost cared about. One shred of humanity. "If you ever want to go further, you will need something that checks your powers instead of the second layer." Then he explained the mental tripwire he had built in his own mind to keep his abilities from derailing lethally. "But a tripwire works only, in case of a short emotional outburst. It gives you the second your reason might need to catch up with the emotional response."

The implication was clear: It would not work, when he wasn't capable of reason in the first place. It would be useless, if he went insane. "That was more than I could have – expected. I'll inform you immediately if something of interest happens."

Cold, calculated words. But they held the promise he'd repay Judd's favor with information and probably with loyalty.


	35. Chapter 35

**Chapter 35**

Barely daring to breathe Kaleb leaned against the inside wall of his cabin, keeping out of the shield radius of the woman who lay calmly on the simple bed. He didn't want to disturb her, just watch. She had dropped out some time ago and of course he had reached out with his mind to the cabin and found hers there, made sure that she was just sleeping. The knowledge that she trusted him enough to make herself so vulnerable had tugged off another shard of ice from that place inside his chest, that was slowly filling completely with that strange warmth he'd never known.

Back in the ballroom he'd experienced a maddening, primal possessiveness until it burned in his veins. He had only wanted to mark Alja as his – that woman every man in the room seemed to find attractive. Now that he watched her sleep, only tenderness was left. There was something very fragile about her, something that made him want to protect her and care for her, more than anything in the world. And for a while he didn't even mind the dissonance spiking harder and harder through his brain, because with every minute he was more certain, that Alja was worth every pain, every risk he was about to take. And it was an irresponsible risk to even think about loosening the stranglehold Silence had on his heart, but what Judd had shared gave him hope there might be a way to open up to the tempting emotions that were pushing at the walls of his conditioning.

And while he stood there in absolute silence, he constructed the mental tripwire that would short circuit his powers the moment they were spinning out of his conscious control. It had to be that strict, because even a splinter of his power could kill. But he'd have to test it. He mustn't be slowed down by it. In the war to come he couldn't sacrifice one shred of speed or strength.

Then he raised the pain thresholds a little, so they wouldn't disturb him before it was necessary to check his lethal abilities. But he didn't change any other components of the conditioning, leaving the memories of the dead Swan tied to any strong emotional reaction. He could never be allowed to forget, what he became when he lost control, and he needed the reminder of Her, the sun-mind. He mustn't abandon Her. He didn't deserve to have any sort of life for himself when he couldn't save Hers. It was a cold fact engraved in his conscience so deep and for so long, that he had never questioned the nature of this motivation. He had never even thought that all this resulted from an emotion too. He had never considered that this unknown woman had a steel hold on the conscience he didn't believe he had.

And with good reason. Because if he had any kind of conscience, he wouldn't risk his sanity and the life of millions for a woman that was just –

– perfect. That was all he could see when he looked at Alja.

Maybe he was losing his mind already.

He couldn't know. He had set the tripwire as strict as possible and left his conditioning widely intact to take the smallest possible steps towards the edge of this unknown territory that was emotion. But in the end he knew he'd have to leap into the darkness and just hope that the abyss would catch him gently.

Suddenly Alja's body tensed. At first he thought he'd unconsciously done something to startle her. But then she opened her eyes, steely focus filling them at once. And he realized she was simply waking up, transforming into the cold, hard assassin within microseconds.

Alja sat up and straightened her shoulders. It felt a little odd to have Kaleb find her in this situation. She hadn't wanted to fall asleep after changing her clothes. But since her breakdown some days ago she hadn't dared to drift off for long. And inexplicably she had felt safe enough this extraordinary refuge in the middle of the wilderness. When she looked up, she saw that the first light of dawn had begun to seep through the curtains. She couldn't have slept for more than an hour. Good. Then her eyes were drawn to the man leaning against the wall. He had that relaxed pose again, as if nothing in the world could surprise or shake him.

"The HQ is safe. You can return anytime you like," he said. He wanted to say something else, so many things. But he didn't have the appropriate words.

_More like anytime _you_ like, since I'm stuck here without your ability to teleport._ Alja wanted to answer, but the provocation stuck in her throat. Something had changed. A very subtle difference in his tone. He didn't sound as piercingly cold as usual. Hope and suspicion firing up her mind simultaneously. But her thoughts stopped again at his next words.

"Do you want to watch the sunrise first?" He pushed off the wall took the few steps towards the door. He just wanted to keep her here for a few more precious moments. "It's still some hours till daybreak in Moscow, and you might not get the chance again anytime soon." Because the grim consequences of everything he and his fellow Councilors had done waited back there and they wouldn't leave them time to rest.

Again that subtle change in his voice accompanied by an almost – expectant look from the endless depths of his eyes. She wanted to drown in those eyes. "Then I better indulge as long as I can."

Outside waited the most beautiful dawn Alja had ever seen. Eyes wide with wonder she let her gaze sweep over the landscape she'd barely seen when they'd been out there before. The sleeping buds on the meadow slowly opened up to radiate their bright colors and intoxicating scents. And the ragged line of mountains that formed the horizon glowed in magnificent pink and orange heralding the glistening orb of light that slowly emerged from behind. And just above, where the orange glowing sky turned from yellow to white and then blue, a small bird of prey drew his slow circles. Her look followed the graceful slope of its flight. Then all of a sudden the bird dropped down with an impossible speed.

Kaleb knew in an instant that something was wrong. He had been watching Alja, following her gaze, wanting to know what it was that amazed her the most. But when the bird swooped, all the joy left her features. Pure shock remained.

"Not again. Not so soon!" Alja stammered terrified. Some part of her mind registered the event was a trigger a second before the memory crashed into her, without any hope to hold on to the here-and-now of reality.

Alja helplessly staggered backwards; her eyes fixed at the empty spot of sky were the bird had been. The ever moving night-sky in them was starting to tumble fast as if it was to collapse any moment. Kaleb scanned the physical surroundings and the Net for any kind of attack. Nothing. Still Alja stared at the sky while her breath went out of rhythm.

"Alja?" A careful question.

No reaction. Just jagged, rapid breathing.

"Alja what happened?" A harsh command.

Nothing. Nothing but mortal terror in her eyes. Cold sweat on her face that had turned pale within seconds. He had never seen fear in her before. It caused a very uneasy sensation to creep up his spine. He blocked it, glad Silence still allowed him to do it to a certain extent. But it was harder than it should have been.

_No, no, no, please no!_ Alja knew she wouldn't make it. Not this time. The trigger shouldn't have set it off so easily. But her psyche was still too worn out, after the breakdown. It was over. She'd never resurface from this horror. She stumbled two more steps back her knees giving under her. She was about to fall. Then she didn't.

Kaleb caught her upper arms just before she would have lost balance. He had stepped right in her line of sight, but her eyes looked through him. She was gone, lost somewhere inside herself. He pulled her closer, one hand around her waist to hold her upright, the other around her nape forcing her to look into his eyes. "Alja – what is wrong with you?"

Sounds – words working their way through the horror inside her. Warmth touching her skin, the scent of thunderstorm and darkness. It brought her back just enough to react.

"I killed him." A toneless whisper. Then a hysterical scream. "I took him out of the sky. I killed him!"

"No you didn't. It was just a falcon who found prey."

"Not falcon… no…"

A moment of recognition in her eyes. Then it flickered away.

White wings tumbling endlessly before her eyes, crashing down again and again. She couldn't contain the memory… _She knew he hadn't felt good for so long. It had been easy to project an intoxicating rush of joy into him. The freedom of flying was the only piece of happiness he had left. And she'd preyed on that, made him jaunty, careless. She'd done her job well. Researched which part of their daily route was the trickiest, the most dangerous. One inattentive moment had been enough. His wing had caught in the old power supply line that stretched over the crevice he had to pass. The next moment he was tumbling down. He came down exactly where she'd planned it, his wings crushed and broken on the sharp edges of the rocks. But that wasn't the worst. He was still alive, when she checked up on him. And with his last strength he dissolved into a million colored, shimmering sparks – a moment of incandescent beauty, before his body reformed to reveal a mortally wounded human. _

_"__Ah, finally they sent me an angel of mercy," he mumbled when he saw her black clad figure approach. His eyes held the terrible truth: He knew it had been her. Then his gaze lost focus and his last, barely audible words left his lips. "I'm coming Susannah!"_

_She had done her job. No one would ever guess at Psy involvement with this one. It would be seen as an accident. A fact that held no solace for Alja._

"I killed him! I killed him!"

Alja mindlessly repeated those words, again and again.

Kaleb tried to reason with her once more never loosening his hold on her body. "Alja listen: whatever this is, it is not real. It is just inside your mind." As if he didn't know exactly how very real something could get inside one's mind. He shoved the thought away. It wouldn't help Alja.

More words filtering through Alja's hazed brain– sense – reason. Then another wave of horror. She had done the unspeakable! She had killed – a man. But it was past, not real now. She tried to hold on to the words: _Not real._ Yes, she knew that. "Memory – flashback – …" She scraped together the words from her knowledge. She had to anchor herself on something real.

Kaleb. He was real.

For a short moment desperate hope pushed through the encroaching darkness. "Don't let me go. Don't leave. Please."

And just then Kaleb realized how serious it was: Alja would never ever beg for help. But then what in hell had reduced her to the frightened creature that was falling apart in front of his eyes? A flashback she'd said, a traumatic memory breaking in on the mind. He knew what it was but he had no idea how to deal with it. He had never wasted a single moment to learn how to deal with traumatized people. When someone broke in front of him he usually just took control of their mind. It struck him that he'd never do that to Alja. But damn, through those impenetrable shields he couldn't even glimpse inside her mind to see what it was that tormented her. "I'm here. Focus Alja! Breathe!" He kept his voice calm, trying to get through to her. His mind raced through everything he knew about her. _Emotional instability – residual – Human contact… physical contact is not necessary or desired._ But when he tried to loosen his hold her hands came up and grabbed his shoulders to increase the contact.

Alja's mind had gone blank. Her training, her carefully tended façade was blacked out by the horror of the residual. But there was an anchor, one thing to hold on to. "Don't stop touching me. Don't let me slip away," she begged.

She seemed to see him for a moment. Then her eyes skated off again. She was shaking like a leaf, her skin still too pale.

"I won't. I'm with you." He pulled her closer to his body even as the dissonance slashed out in spite of the heightened threshold. He wrenched down the impulse to unleash his psychic powers with violent control. They wouldn't help with this.

More warmth. Hard muscles shifting under her palms. Faint echoes of heat and desire among the terror of the memory. It wasn't enough. The darkness kept pulling her under, forcing her to relive every death she'd caused again and again.

Kaleb struggled with what to do. He couldn't let Alja slip into that state that had death running through her veins. But touch seemed to be the only thing to get her out. And even though he wanted it more than anything, he was close to the limit of what his conditioning would allow. Images of the woman whose death had turned him into a monster were already burning behind his eyes, warning him to stay cold. But he had to try and help Alja. The tripwire would work, it must. – With her face already so close he touched his lips to hers very lightly, waiting if she'd react positively to more intense contact.

Alja no longer reacted like a sentient being. Only the most basic functions of her mind remained active, exclusively focused on survival. And the savage instincts of her dark part knew what it took:

More! She needed more.

So when she felt the slight warm touch on her mouth, that dark part clawed its way to the surface making her body react exactly the way she had tried to suppress ever since she'd met Kaleb. And the next moment she was kissing him back with desperate violence. One of her hands clawed deeper into his shoulder while the other clutched his nape and fisted in his hair, pressing him harder to her.

And it did help. She could feel him like a thunderstorm in her veins: his brand of dark, electric energy mixing with her own darkness, washing away the horror of her guilt.

Kaleb felt himself give in to the kiss, starting to answer with the same force that lay in Alja's movements even as his conditioning fought to strangle the impulse with the memories of death: In his head the scent of wildflowers and rain mingled with the antiseptic stench of a windowless medical torture chamber. The exhilarating feel of Alja's lithe but strong body wrapped around his in a gesture of pure demand was tainted by memories of fragile bones breaking one after the other under the merciless strength of his Tk.

_Crack. Crack. Crack._

The echo of the dreadful sound was far too clear. His control was down so close to the tripwire level he could feel his powers sizzling about to be shut down – if it worked. But it didn't react yet.

Suddenly Alja moved and the next moment she was several steps away from him, eyes wide with shock but no longer pale. Her skin was flushed, her lips kiss-swollen and she was gasping for air. She seemed shaken and confused but the woman who looked at him out of those unsettling eyes was definitely Alja. She was back.

"What…? – Why did you…? – I didn't mean to project!" A confused shake of her head as she was regaining full consciousness. How in hell did she always manage to fuck it up like this?

But now that she was out of the flashback, she seemed to get back to normal pretty fast.

_Oops he did it again! _The little voice taunted at once. _This time he started it. _I_ had nothing to do with it. _

Well, probably 'back to her normal state of impending insanity' described it better. _Yeah I'm sure you didn't. _She answered absentmindedly. Strangely the voice stopped for once, as if it was satisfied by the turn of events.

"I don't think you projected. I made the decision to kiss you on the observation that physical contact seemed to help." The words didn't sound as cool as Kaleb had intended. But Alja seemed too confused herself to notice.

"But you're Silent! You're endangering your conditioning…"

"…which I should disable anyway, as you waste no opportunity to tell me." The woman really was a puzzle. She had just escaped another total breakdown and the first thing she thought about was how it might affect him. "That you worry about it now is highly illogical. Just like the fact that touch should help you, when you said you couldn't really feel it." Luckily his effort to appear composed was working.

"I think I'm recovering. Or maybe it was the intensity…" She could still feel him as if he was under her skin. Even with her senses fully intact it should be impossible. But seeing his face was like ice water to her whipped up emotions. He just watched her with a cool calculating gaze, completely unshaken while she fought to keep it together. Suddenly she felt embarrassed. "You shouldn't do that again. It might destabilize me further."

"You didn't seem to mind just now." He might not be used to physical, much less sexual contact, but the way she clung to him seconds ago had screamed pure desire.

"That wasn't me, not consciously." Alja stopped; realized she made no sense. She tried for logic. Found it at last: "My psyche is fragmented. That way I can mostly block the impact of the empathic rebound and it also helps me deal with the residual. But it comes at a price."

"I remember you said you compartmentalize, but this sounds more like a split personality."

"Not quite. Not yet. But the more I try to split it off the stronger that part of me gets. And it demands that the residual is balanced out by – different sensations and emotions."

It was obvious she had barely avoided the term 'positive' or 'pleasant'. So the part of her that craved his touch was also the one that held her deepest regrets. How else could it be for him? "Why did a hunting bird set you off like that?"

Alja didn't want to think about it anymore than necessary, but she knew it would help to talk about the facts. Putting the chaotic horror into words, counteracting it with reason. "I was still vulnerable after the incident last week. The scene triggered memories of my first killing mission." She started to walk toward the edge of the field, needing the movement to keep her mind focused. "It was a bird changeling. I made him crash during flight using the empathic projection." And even after six more kills that one was still the worst. Using her healing gift to kill had been one step too far. It had almost cost her her sanity back then and it probably still would in the long run.

Kaleb followed her through the blooming meadow unable to appreciate any of its beauty. Again the uneasy sensation spread along his spine, creeping into his stomach. There was something important about this. He just couldn't get a grip on it yet. "I remember your file said you were working among an eagle pack. But there was no mention that an assassination was requested."

"Wing, they call it wing not pack." Alja had turned off any sign of emotional involvement, as if she was talking about some scientific facts. "And the assassination was not mentioned, because it was an off-the-record request from a Councilor."

"Why would a Councilor request an undercover execution of a changeling?"

"I'd say 'ask him'. But you can't. You took his place."

It had been Santano. Kaleb started to feel sick. A threatening hum in the back of his head told him there was something he didn't want to know.

"So you cleaned up a Councilor's personal mess."

"It's what Arrows do." An inevitable finality in her voice. And also a hint of bitterness. Arrows had once been protectors of their race. As wrong as Silence turned out to be, the Squad had been installed to keep that last hope safe. But few of them still saw themselves as that. Decades of the Council's abuse of their skills had made sure of it. And with Silence threatening to crumble, many of them saw their purpose vanish, leaving them with that look of total emptiness on their faces, like Vasic. She felt a sting in her heart, when she remembered his expression the last time they'd met. There was almost nothing left of him. Kaleb broke that hurtful line of thought with his next question.

"But you must know more. What business did Enrique have with the eagles?" He knew he should let it go. Somehow he couldn't.

"It wasn't about the eagles. It was about the cob – the swan."

Kaleb's blood froze. A wave of nausea welled up against his insides and against every emotional block he tried to hold up. He wished Alja would stop talking but the words just kept flowing mercilessly out of her.

"He just lived with the eagles at the time. He didn't bear to stay in his own wing, because the woman who would have been his mate vanished. He accused the Psy of abducting her." They had reached the edge of the canyon and Alja stared down into its shadows, lost in her tale – lost in someone else's pain. "Can you believe he was still searching for her seven years later? How can someone cling to a futile hope for so long?… I felt his relief when he died… I have never met someone who suffered so." Her eyes reflected that deep pain just for a fleeting moment, then her face hardened once more and she was all soldier again. "Arthur Lightwing. That was his name. After I completed the mission…"

Alja went on with her report but Kaleb didn't hear her voice any more, trying too hard to stifle the impulse to vomit. The name had been the final blow. Because that name had been burned into his brain. He had found it connected to almost every good memory he had once played through a frightened girl's mind, while he sought for a way to spare her a horrible death. He hadn't. Instead he had turned into the coldblooded killer his mentor wanted him to be. He had always known that this moment had been crucial in his evolution to a creature of pure evil. But it had never been as clear as now. Everything he had or hadn't done after that day didn't matter. _I don't believe such a thing as 'pure evil' truly exists. … It is such a human construct – an emotional construct even, don't you think?_ Alja's words, but they offered no solace. Because she had no idea how bad it was, how bad he was. His actions had been the cause for her first mission. He had hurt her even before he knew her.

"… Aden took me off the roster for two weeks and kept me mostly out of offensive missions afterwards. That's why I had mostly minor assignments." That was when she turned towards Kaleb who had gone unnaturally quiet while she talked. He stood beside her, absolutely motionless, his expression hard, frozen. But when her eyes would have met his he avoided her gaze.

That was unusual.

"You can stay under my protection as long as you want. I will make sure you never have to harm another human being again. _You_ will decide which assignments you accept. And if there is anything you need to cope with the residual, just say it and you'll have it." He gritted the words out between his teeth, still fighting the nasty sensations that came with his loosened conditioning. "It's getting late. We should return now," he added. But instead of pushing for a teleport he headed back towards the cabin.

If she hadn't known better Alja would have thought he was trying to avoid her. Why would he act like this? She wondered. She had told him far more scandalizing truths about herself and her past and he hadn't so much as blinked. Taking off after him she tried to figure out what was going on: Kaleb had gone quiet after she mentioned Enrique Santano. Slowly it dawned on her that his reaction wasn't due to her past. It was due to his. She thought about everything she'd learned about it from the NetMind, everything she'd learned since she met him. And then the truth hit her like a bullet train. "Kaleb, look at me!"

That was about the last thing he wanted to do right now, but there was a strange brand of shock in her voice. And he couldn't ignore that after the breakdown she had only just avoided. So he stopped and turned around keeping an expression of Silence that was as flawless as he wished his conditioning still were.

"It was your mess I cleaned up, wasn't it?"

He didn't answer. Didn't have to. The knowledge was so clear in her eyes, denial would have been futile. And to see it felt as if his heart was being torn out of his chest. He had never dared to hope for much. But now she'd hate him – just like she ought to.

"How could I have been so blind?" She kept staring at his face as if it suddenly held all the answers.

"Now you know what kind of monster I am." His voice was so toneless it was a wonder it was audible.

"No. Now I know you're none at all."

"What?" The single word dropped out of him dumbfounded. There was only one possible explanation: The woman was positively insane.

But Alja had just understood something that she hadn't been able to see before. She had always thought that the set of emotions that was lying underneath all of his behavior must be very complex. But there was no set of underlying emotions. For Kaleb there was just one. "Guilt. That's what it is! That's what you're hiding under all this Silence. You never knew anything else. And it's eating you up from the inside."

"You're still in shock. Maybe you should get treatment." He was definitively not going to discuss this with her.

"Don't you understand what that means? It means that there is good in you, because bad people don't feel guilt." Alja had forgotten all her pretense of appearing the perfect Arrow. The impulse to heal was just overwhelming now that she had a clue what was wrong with Kaleb. Her Kaleb. There was hope for him.

"I don't feel it either. I'm Silent," he insisted.

"Yes, you don't allow yourself to feel it. But it is there. And it drives your actions. If you just…"

But he didn't let her finish her sentence.

"Don't try to fix me!" He stepped as close as he dared, but he didn't trust himself with touching her. His voice was brutal, a reflection of the lethal power that was a part of him. He had to make her see how much he had held back with her so far. He wanted to scare her, make her see what she still denied. "I will _never_ be good. I am the cause for the memories that almost crushed you – again."

"You're also the cause they didn't. You even risked that very conditioning you find so important to bring me back." Alja stubbornly held his gaze against the instinctive impulse to back down. The stars in his eyes gleamed so fierce they might as well be glinting tips of daggers pointed at her. She refused to be intimidated by him, almost glad she could make him let down his civilized façade for a moment even if it caused icy shivers to run down her spine.

"Why do you still want to see something in me that is not there?"

"Why are you so determined to deny that something _is_ there?" she snapped at him frustrated. But she knew she was being unfair. She expected far too much. Maybe it was time to give them both a break. She blew out a breath. "I'm sorry. I won't push you on this any further. Who am I to judge you, if Silence is your solution?" It took all the strength she had to let this go.

"Good." He gave her a simple nod. Finally she had understood. A part of him felt relieved. But another part of him cringed with unknown pain at the loss. She gave up on him. Not even Alja dared to face the truth of what he was. It hurt so bad, it even startled the monster in its cage. He could hear it groan and push at the merciless walls that entombed it.

But he should have known Alja better by now.

She wasn't finished. She just needed a moment to gather the courage for her next words. "I will take your offer of further protection and I will rely on your consideration for my emotional nature and needs." She spoke calmly and focused, almost like a true Psy, but there was warmth in her voice too. "But I want you to know that I may be able to help you one day. I can show you there are other emotions that are worth facing your guilt." When he would have spoken she quickly added. "Not now, but maybe when all this is over, when _you_ are ready, you will let me repay you with my help." She felt strangely calm, just like the night he'd sought her at the gym. This was who she was meant to be: someone who offered help, healing and above all hope – the one emotion with the potential to guide people through the darkest nightmares.

"Another deal then," he answered. His voice strictly contained. "But Alja – don't wait for the day you'll have to hold your end of the bargain. It might not come – ever."

Alja took a deep breath, released it slowly, let all humanity vanish from her appearance too. It was hard, but she hadn't lost all her behavioral controls yet. "Alright. Will you tell me about the mimicry job then? I'll have to decide if I can do it on our new terms."

"We will infiltrate the highest ranks of Pure Psy. I had it confirmed that the individual whose mind you'll be copying has direct contact to a man named Andrea Vasquez. He was Henry's strategic general. If we can locate him in the Net I get access to a lot of insider knowledge, including who runs Pure Psy now."

"I take it that 'getting access' doesn't mean you'll talk to him over a cup of tea."

"Taking him out it will rip a huge hole in their resources. But you won't have to do it, of course."

"Of course. You just have to know, you can also neither kill him when I'm linked to you in the Net, nor when I'm physically close by. Both ways I'd feel his death even if I'm not the one to deliver it." After everything he had learned about her she didn't need to elaborate what would happen to her if she was forced to feel it.

But nothing in Alja's countenance betrayed that she was not completely cool with killing someone otherwise than that it mustn't happen in her company. She had survived decades among the deadliest assassins after all. "I only need you to be able to get to him. As soon as I have a lock I'll take you out."

"Then count me in."

"If you're up for it, we can go in tomorrow – or more accurately today. It's probably best not to waste any more time. We should strike before they can."

* * *

When Alja was finally alone in her quarters the whole weight of everything that had happened crushed down on her. She lay on the bed fully dressed, trying to relax her body, when her mind refused to. It just kept spinning around all the things that had happened.

Within the last few hours she had irrevocably entangled herself in the politics of a war that was likely to devastate her people – and first of all herself. Then she had learned how thin her shields against insanity had gotten: Even the smallest triggers could cause cataclysmic breakdowns and the wicked voice of darkness grew louder with every new unsettling event. She could snap any time now.

But she knew that wasn't what wore her down to a point where she didn't even know how to go on. She had lived under the threat of death and insanity her entire life. And she always knew she'd probably run out of time one day.

It was what she'd learned about Kaleb. She had finally found that trace of emotion in him, a chance of goodness linked to a terrible crime. She had come closer to him than ever before, just to find that fate had put an impassable gulf of guilt and Silence between them.

Even worse were the doubts that kept nagging at her. She'd told him she didn't believe he was a monster. But on what basis? Some long ago act of mercy the NetMind had shown to her? Or simply because she refused to accept that the man who made her burn for him was a cold sociopath like his mentor? He had admitted the murder of an innocent woman and she had seen guilt all too readily in him. What if she was wrong and a monster in a civilized shell was all that was left of him? But then, how could he have kissed her like that? How could he make it so hard for her to believe there truly was no hope?

It didn't matter, she realized.

_Don't wait for the day … it might not come – ever._

Whatever the truth was, Kaleb had made it clear he would probably never want to be anything but Silent. She had to acknowledge the fact that it might be better that way.

And tomorrow she would help him kill someone. Just what she'd always done. The difference was that until today she'd had to, to survive. But not now. She had a chance to back out. He had given her a choice and still she'd said yes. Because she'd give him everything – no matter she'd never get anything back. For the first time in her life she wished she truly could be Silent, escape that ravaging pain, that gut deep longing she hadn't thought herself capable of.

She had believed she knew what she was missing when her senses were numbed and fleeting human contacts were her sole source of emotion. But she had had no idea that she could ever be starving for someone. Yet she was – for Kaleb. For his closeness, his touch and his untamed energy that chased her demons away.

_?_

The NetMind brushed by her with a caring caress. It must have sensed her distress.

_I'm ok. Just a hard day._ She tried to soothe it.

_He helps. _A picture of Kaleb's mind.

_Yes, he helped me today._

_You heal?_ The same picture it had shown her over and over again: Her mind projecting emotion throughout the Net, giving it back life.

Guilt hit her hard. She hadn't thought about her one life-task in a while, distracted by her feelings for Kaleb. _I don't know how. It doesn't work._ And she had tried so hard and so often.

_Trust him. _

The same advice again. But how much more was she supposed to trust Kaleb. She was still unsure if telling him the whole truth wouldn't get her killed. And the enigmatic pictures and advices didn't help a bit. She wasn't one step closer to fulfilling her destiny. Instead she endangered herself in political hazards and she had fallen body, heart and soul for a man who was never going to be hers. And there was nothing she could do against it. She craved him so badly it felt as if she was torn apart at the seams.

Even the vicious little voice wasn't mocking her for once. It just whispered its tempting suggestions. _You want something for yourself, just once in your life. Is that so wrong? You know you could make him feel for real._

_No not for real. It wouldn't be real. _

And she couldn't make herself forget that, no matter how great the temptation was. She turned around and buried her head in the pillow. And then she did what she had not done since her very early childhood: She gave in to tears.

_It wouldn't be real, but maybe it would take away some of the pain. _She heard one last whisper just before she drifted off to sleep.


	36. Chapter 36

**Chapter 36**

Deep in the heart of the PsyNet, in a hidden vault, three of its brightest stars blazed up in discussion. Tatiana had alerted her temporary allies. She must have been up either very late or very early to get the news first.

"It's worse than I expected. We have to act soon, before she does any more damage," Ming said, his mental voice pristine, no hint of concern although he found the situation highly unsettling. A mere thought of Alja Dardo brought back very unpleasant memories. And she'd been a child back then.

"Yes, it seems she's starting to feed the rebellion through Kaleb. The other races' media are already reacting," Shoshanna agreed. "How do we proceed?"

"We need to counteract the media hype first. Do you still have control over the NewsNet stations?" Ming addressed Shoshanna. She and her deceased husband had been in charge of the Council's PR and media empire. And over the past hundred years the Council's propaganda machine had erased all independent companies. So control over NewsNet and its subsidiaries meant control over all Psy media.

"The international broadcast and the servers with our webpages are all in Europe. I only lost a few local stations in Nikita's and Anthony's territory. So even if they try to interfere, I still have comprehensive access."

"I doubt that they do. As far as I was able to uncover they're still unaware of the situation with Kaleb and too occupied securing their territory." Ming was after all the only one alive who had witnessed what Alja Dardo could do.

"Then they're not our concern for now. What's the next step in your plan?" Shoshanna asked. It wasn't easy for her to cooperate with another who had significant power, but Ming was the Ex-Council's master strategist, which was the sole reason she would follow his lead on this.

"That depends on Tatiana. You still refuse to let us have a look at the new tracker-viruses?" Ming didn't like to be kept in the dark about a crucial part of his own plan, but it wouldn't work without Tatiana and Shoshanna.

"I will play my part, but won't share any more than necessary." She would only reveal very vague information about the devices she built to bring down their common enemy. "I need some more time. We lost our element of surprise when I tested the first set. I have to make them faster so we can place them further away from Kaleb's scan radius and they still get through."

"Then I suggest in the meantime each of us does what we do best. Tatiana finishes the trackers. Shoshanna takes the media. And I put some more pressure on our quarry. She will make a mistake sooner or later. And when she does, we'll be ready to strike."


	37. Chapter 37

**Chapter 37**

After he had brought Alja back to the HQ Kaleb had wanted to go home and catch some sleep too. He had already deprived himself of it for a dangerously long time and he had to be fit to deal with the media chaos in less than three hours. But just when he wanted to teleport out of his office, he sensed someone approaching through the corridor. He really should get some sleep, he thought. He had only noticed her mind when she was almost at his door. He opened it before she could knock. And the sight of her knocked the breath out of him.

"Alja, what are you doing here?" She had changed back into the dress she'd worn at the ball, except that she was barefoot now and her hair tumbled down in soft waves over her shoulders.

"You said I just had to say it if I need something to deal with the residual." Her voice was low, calm and full of sinful promises.

"Yes." It was all he got out. His voice was about to crack. Somehow the air was filled with an unbearable, but addictive kind of tension.

"Well, I need touch. Yours would be fine." One of those smiles – pure provocation. Just the way he liked her.

But this was wrong. She shouldn't be here.

She stepped closer. Too close. He had trouble thinking clear with her wildflowers and rain scent wrapping all around him. He should react. But all he could do was stare.

Her tongue flicked over her lips once before she spoke again. "You want to touch me, don't you?"

Of course he wanted. He had barely been able to think of anything else. How was he supposed to back out now? He had used up all of his resistance tonight.

"You knew?" It came out husky.

"What did you expect? I'm an empath. Of course I knew. But you were so stubborn about your fake of Silence all the time." Another mocking smile he wanted to drink right off her lips.

He couldn't fight the urge to touch her any longer. He lifted a hand to her face brushed his fingers over her lower lip. It was soft, warm, wet. His heartbeat got unsteady. He was mesmerized, unable to look away from her sky-fall eyes and unable to act when she slowly pulled one of her willow-glass blades out of her sleeve.

So finally she was about to make him fall. He didn't care.

"Just let me show you what you're missing," she said with her voice turning another shade darker. Then she reached up behind her head and cut the strap of the dress that went around her nape. The fabric slipped just far enough to reveal the upper curves of her breasts.

And he knew he was done for.

He lowered his hand to tug at the front of her dress. It slipped down even before he touched it and his hand landed on soft, warm skin. Under his palm he could feel her chest rise and fall in a fast irregular rhythm.

He wanted more. The thought hadn't even fully formed, when her dress started to slip further, as if it was moved by invisible hands.

Then he realized it was.

"What did you do to your shields?" He had never been able to use his Tk so close to her body, not even when she'd flexed them during the dance. But now the midnight blue satin kept peeling off her body at his will until all of it collected in a pool at her feet.

"You wanted my trust. So I opened them up." She simply stood there, naked like the picture of an ancient goddess, holding his gaze, an erotic invitation full of mischievous challenge. Sky-fall eyes kept drawing him into the sweet madness of sensation.

It was all it took.

He crushed her to him, one hand fisting in her hair angling her head so he could take her mouth the way he'd dreamt of every time he'd looked at those luscious lips. She opened up to him with a sigh allowing him to explore her mouth as he wanted. A small clink sounded as Alja dropped the glass blade to the floor. A second later he felt her hands fist in the sides of his shirt, while he let one hand slide over the soft curves of her back, her hips, her buttocks. He squeezed the firm flesh, made her moan into his kiss.

The dissonance kicked in hard. But the pain didn't matter. It was a price he'd gladly pay. The memories of death faded under the potency of the sudden fantasy of having Alja's body splayed on his office desk, ready for him to take.

Breaking the kiss he slowly released his other hand from her hair that seemed to turn softer with every inch he stroked through it – until it was almost feathery. He drew back at once, caught a flutter of blond in the corner of his eye. But it was still Alja's face that looked at him disappointed that he'd broken the contact. He blew out a relieved breath. It was just the memories activated by the Protocol, refusing to be ignored. He leaned down to press a kiss on her neck, felt her arch to give him better access.

_Crack._

Suddenly a nasty, crunching noise disrupted the calm.

Then another – and another.

_Crack, crack, crack. _

_Just the memories._ He told himself. But Alja's body suddenly cringed under his hands as if she could hear the noises too. He pulled back to see what it was that had her shudder, while another cascade of crunching echoed in his head far louder than it should have.

_Crack, crack, crack._

The look in Alja's eyes turned terrified, but she didn't make a sound.

_Crack, crack, crack._

Then her knees gave under her. She dropped away from him. He couldn't hold her.

And with a shock he realized it weren't her knees! Her very bones buckled under her. Her beautiful legs bent in impossible angles, before he even fully realized what was happening.

It made his guts churn.

_Oh no! PLEASE NO! _This was Alja. He mustn't hurt her.

Instead more and more crunching noises followed and the vicious voice of the monster started whispering.

Crack – _stop the blood,_

Crack – _stop the heart,_

Crack – _or just tear them apart_.

He couldn't stop. He knew it was him who was doing this, but he couldn't stop because he wanted it. The monster wanted to hear her bones crack in the silence of death.

Crack – _make them mute, _

Crack –_ make them cease_,

Crack – _when they're dead_…

_Stop please! She doesn't even scream! _

Alja just stared at him her features twisted in pain and shock while her body convulsed with every breaking bone. But he was powerless to hold back. His Tk slashed out again and again, mercilessly breaking his beautiful Alja apart.

_CRACK. CRACK. CRACK._

Her gaze stayed locked with his until the life left her eyes turning them a pale blue – a shade he'd only ever seen in the eyes of the woman he'd killed.

"Ha, ha, ha!" A cold mockery of a laugh. "That is a very good solution. But _not good enough_. Try again."

And then the screaming started inside his head.

_NO!_

* * *

Kaleb was woken up by a bone-chilling scream and the sensation of falling.

It took him several seconds to realize that the scream had been his own. Sitting up it felt as if his sense of balance was somehow off. He was panting, drenched in sweat, his hair plastered to his forehead and his heart was racing like a machine gun.

The sheets were rumpled and partially pulled off the bed. He didn't usually move that much during sleep.

Just a dream.

Psy didn't dream. But he just had.

Slowly he took in his surroundings, trying to calm down his breathing, focus on reality.

It was not his balance that was off, he realized. The mattress hung skewed in the remnants of his bedframe which had collapsed to one side, the thick wooden posts broken like matches. But the real shock hit him when he turned on the lights with Tk to look around the room. It was a battlefield. Every leg, board and bar of every piece of furniture was broken exactly in half.

Diving into his mind to check the control mechanisms he saw at once why it had happened: The mental tripwire, Judd had taught him, had burned through like a silken thread, without even causing his energy to flicker. Because there was one crucial difference between Judd's abilities and his: The magnitude. A mental tripwire might be able to keep Judd's abilities in check, but it held back Kaleb's powers as much as a real wire would hold back a tank. And if they went active unconsciously, during sleep there was no way to stop it. That was why he had been trained not to dream, like all Silent Psy.

Yet, until that moment he had fooled himself into believing he still had some kind of control over this. But the emotions that had grown underneath his fracturing Silence had already gotten far too strong to be contained. And by allowing it he had done the unspeakable:

He had woken up the monster. And with it a knowledge he'd buried so deep inside the vault in his mind that he had managed to ignore it most of the time. But now he was forced to remember what he had chosen to suppress: The monster had killed long before he had snapped the fragile neck of the swan. The monster had caused the most violent carnage even as a child. The monster was who he really was. And now it wanted to feed on the hopes of the man he had idiotically thought he could be. It was bouncing against the walls if its confinement, wanting out for prey.

He knew it hadn't been attracted to Alja by itself. It liked the weak ones, the ones who screamed. It had been awakened by the memories of the swan girl that he triggered again and again with his feelings, because he'd connected them to his version of the Protocol. He had wanted to be reminded of the one he still had to find, to save. Instead he had reminded himself that a part of him didn't want so save lives. It just wanted to end them.

His conditioning had turned against him after all, in a way that hurt worse than any physical pain ever could. Because now he could no longer deny that a part of him wanted to hurt Alja – while another part would do anything to prevent him from doing so. And there was only one way to do that: refrain from all further contact with Alja and try to rebuild his conditioning.

The thought made his chest grow so tight it was hard to breathe and it caused a burning kind of pain in the place where he'd always thought there was just a piece of muscle pumping blood through his body. He buried his face in his hands, as if he could just will reality away. Then he ran them up through his hair. A gesture he'd never done before, yet it came naturally with the surge of desperation. But of course it was superfluous. He couldn't wipe away the dark truths that had become clear. He had to get up, pull himself together and start cutting his losses.

First he had to get rid of the evidence of his dream: The destroyed interior of his room. Usually he would've teleported the broken furniture right into a garbage incinerator. But that was what he'd done to the swan's corpse. Disposing of the debris in the same way would be like repeating the murder all over. He excused the irrational idea with needing physical exercise. So he started carrying all of it to an unused room in the house. Since he only used a bedroom and a study, there were plenty of those.

Even though the task was exhausting he started to feel colder with every minute. So when he was done he took a hot shower. But he wouldn't get warm no matter how hot he turned the water, because this cold had nothing to do with the physical. It came from deep inside and the one who could thaw it was the one he could never come close to again. He had never been this alone, never understood loneliness like now. Until he met Alja he had always accepted it as a cold fact.

Maybe he should have stuck to the sun-mind. That hope had only ever guided him, never hurt him. It was the safe option. Yes, of course he should have stuck to Her.

What awaited him when he returned to his HQ erased even the last doubts he might have had about his decision to stay away from Alja.


	38. Chapter 38

**Chapter 38**

It had been six days since the ball. And Alja hadn't seen Kaleb ever since. On the morning after, she had set out to his office for the appointed meeting. Silver had caught her in the corridor, telling her that the Councilor's plans for the day had changed and she was scheduled for shield counselling instead.

At first Alja hadn't thought much of it. It was logical that Kaleb had other things to do after their scene at the ball. It had made quite an impact on the political situation.

The war that had been covert so far had hit the media with full force. NewsNet like any other Psy associated Media platform was brimming with pro-Silence propaganda. It seemed like a hastily and sloppily slapped up program: They had dug up old footage from the first days of the Protocol and mixed it with pseudo-scientific studies about insanity rates of Psy on and off the Protocol. As Shoshanna owned most influence on the media it was clear what her position was: Make the public believe Silence was still their salvation. It worked only partially, because the human and changeling operated media did their best to counteract the propaganda.

And some Psy started to listen, especially since Nikita Duncan and Anthony Kyriakus had given interviews on CTX distancing themselves from the official Council broadcasts. Ming LeBon and Tatiana Rika-Smythe hadn't joined the media discussion so far but the rising rehabilitation rates in their sectors made it obvious on which side of the line they stood. Kaleb had released only one short and very enigmatic, official statement yet. Otherwise it was as if he'd vanished completely, leaving everyone, including Alja to speculate about his designs.

The split in the Council was mirrored by a split in the populace. The Net was already buzzing with dissent. Some supported if not the means at least the goals of Pure Psy. Others were talking of rebellion and possible defection. It was only a matter of time until it got violent.

Pure Psy itself was behaving suspiciously quiet. Alja knew that could mean only one thing: They were planning on something big. And if what Kaleb had told her was true she was his best asset to find out what it was and how to sabotage them. Still he hadn't answered any of her messages. Instead Silver was stonewalling her whenever she thought he might be in the building and approached his office.

People were going to die and she couldn't help them. She was as far away as ever from finding a way to do what the NetMind expected from her. Everything she'd tried proved a failure. Instead she was confined to the HQ unable to do anything helpful at all. She was close to breaking under the pressure of the responsibility she couldn't fulfill. And her unhealthy obsession with a man that had declared he wanted her friendship and trust just to refuse all contact afterwards did nothing to stabilize her fragile mind.

_Maybe you did get under his skin after all. And he's trying to prevent you from getting even deeper. Ever thought of that? Oh no, you're just too noble to think of your own desires when you have such a big job to do and no idea how. _She tried to tune out the annoying voice of her dark part whenever possible. It was not successful any longer.

She had even thought about accepting Aden's repeated offer to get her out of the assignment, but she found she couldn't leave, even if it hurt more from day to day. It probably didn't matter anyway. She had had two breakdowns within a week and she felt her mind crumpling like paper under the pressure of everything that happened. She wasn't going to keep it up much longer. Kaleb most likely acted as a catalyst for her condition, but she had been falling for a long time and now she was about to hit the ground.

Suddenly she knew what she needed. And this time security wouldn't stop her. Maybe she'd even get a reaction from Kaleb after all. So she sent him a short message to his organizer, sure he always had it with him and was ignoring her on purpose.

_"As you requested I am now alerting you that I am getting close to another breakdown._  
_I'm heading out for human contact tonight, so I will be fully functional, in case you ever need my services._

_A. Dardo"_

The effect was immediate. He appeared in her office seconds later acting so perfectly cold and indifferent one might have mistaken it for anger – in someone not Silent.

"You can't go out. You know that." He shouldn't have come, Kaleb thought at once. Seeing Alja was a kick to the guts that just served to let him know how very unsuccessful he had been rebuilding his conditioning. But he couldn't risk that she found a way to get out alone.

"Why not? You don't seem to need me anyway, which is absolutely illogical. I know the mental mimicry was crucial for your dealing with Pure Psy. Yet you keep postponing going into the Net with me." She got up from her desk, walked around to face him directly.

"The last time you linked with me, someone tried to pin trackers on you. It's a security risk." He knew Alja was too clever to believe such a flimsy excuse. But he hadn't prepared to come up with anything else. In fact she'd gotten him right out of a meeting with Silver, which was very dangerous because his instant reaction to her message might make him seem weak in the other woman's eyes. And he couldn't afford to lose the Mercant family's loyalty. But letting Alja walk into danger was even less possible. And he knew full well that left him skating on very thin ice.

"You can switch location a few times before we link and there'll be no problem. They can't follow you that fast." Now that she had him here she wouldn't let it go that easily.

"I am not discussing my decisions with a subordinate." Well now he was stooping low, but as long as she stopped digging into his motives to keep away from her anything would do.

"Alright. Then I'm not discussing my private matters with my superior. Just know I'll be off duty tonight for at least twelve hours, since I'll probably have to drive." She had sworn she wouldn't let him see her anger, which was not entirely successful. Well at least she didn't fall apart in front of him again.

"It's too dangerous. Everyone including your contacts knows your face now."

"How stupid do you think I am? They only remember me when I unlock their knowledge. And I can correct their memory before I do." It was a pitiful excuse for real friendships, but all she had. "I might be weak but I can control a few humans."

Kaleb didn't like to have his options cut like that but the pressure was rising. He had to give in at least a little. Maybe it would be enough. "Alright then at least pick somewhere less public than the last time. I'll take you wherever you want." She probably truly needed her contact and he owed her to bring her there, unable to give her any support himself.

"I can go the home of my contact from the truck stop." Liza had offered her to come, if she was in trouble. And she really needed her warmth and affection.

"You can't." It was the one contact Alja could never go to again, Kaleb knew for certain. "She might be compromised."

"What does that... wait! How do you even know it's a woman?" A sudden fear made her stomach clench, before she could even think of the implications of what Kaleb had said.

"I just guessed. What does it matter?" Why couldn't he think of something better? He could usually lie with such ease. But not to her. Those sky-fall eyes that were rapidly getting more restless seemed to look right through him.

"When she's compromised I have to make sure she's safe." Relentless determination in every word.

It hit Kaleb that he was never going to talk his way out of this. He had failed to protect Alja again. And she was about to learn. "Unnecessary. I took care of it."

Alja froze. "What did you do to her?"

"Nothing. I did absolutely nothing," he gritted out. And it was the truth.

"Then what are you not telling me?" She couldn't keep her voice from shaking.

"Just pick another contact." It was his last try although he knew it wouldn't work. He had to hurt her once more, even if she was breaking already.

Alja felt the walls closing in on her, leaving her no way out. But this time she'd fight. "Forget it. I am not going anywhere near them until I know what happened to Liza."

"Someone must have known she was connected to you – like someone knew Marino Ghetty was." It was the most careful way to put it. Still every word cut like he was chewing on glass.

"No." It was a whisper. Her hands started to tremble first, then her jaw. She clenched it tight until it hurt. The world started to blur around her. Some part of her mind noted that it was because of the tears filling her eyes. "They all die… because of me." The weight of that guilt had her voice break. But something inside her went suddenly quiet – frighteningly quiet, like a storm gathering. "I want to see it," she said after a short pause.

Of course she had understood at once, but showing her the new 'delivery' he had received for her almost a week ago wouldn't do any good for her stability. "I don't think that would be a wise idea." He kept his voice low, measured. It didn't have the intended effect of calming her.

"I want to see the fucking head!" She almost screamed. _So much about not falling apart in front of him_. The wicked voice scorned her. This time she didn't mind. She understood its contempt, its anger. Felt it. And she was so sick of directing it at herself.

"Alja you need to get your emotions under control. You can't walk around like this." Kaleb just wanted to hold her, but he mustn't touch her or he'd hurt her even worse. Like in his dream.

But suddenly her tone changed from desperate to cold – very, very cold. "No. You know what I really need to do?" She made a pause. Focused her eyes on his, the calm in her tone getting even more chilling. "I need to kill Ming."

It was even worse than he'd expected. "He's manipulating you. You're reacting fully emotional. That's exactly what he wants."

"And I'll let him know that it's working. Maybe I should have scared him to death the last time." Alja heard how cold she sounded but she helplessly watched herself tumble into a madness, she no longer had the will to resist. The world had transformed into a red haze of furious hate and anger that felt hot and cold at the same time. "But I'll make up for it. I will make him feel all their deaths and every sliver of darkness he poured over my soul. Make him taste the poison he made me swallow when he forced me to hide in an Arrows disguise."

That was when Kaleb knew something was very wrong with Alja. This was more than a nervous breakdown or a flashback. "Alja I understand your anger but even if you could survive killing another sentient being, you have no way of getting even close to him." Kaleb argued although he was no longer certain logic worked with her. But it was all he had.

A hysterical laugh sliced through the air like a naked blade. "_You_ understand my anger? You understand nothing about me! I don't even _have_ to get close to him. _You_ can kill him for me." Alja no longer could hold back the words that blurted out. Her last bit of control focused solely on stopping herself from projecting her anger out, making Kaleb want to kill just as badly as she wanted it.

"Killing Ming would destabilize the Net. You wouldn't risk the life of so many." But he was no longer sure about it. Right then he would have very much liked to do exactly what she suggested. But that hadn't any thing to do with projection. Or had it? There was nothing left of Alja's warmth. It was as if her personality had vanished to be replaced by a creature made purely of hate, contempt and savage desire. The usually pristine stars in her eyes had dimmed to flecks of an eerie red-violet glow.

"I don't care for our sick, fucking race. Shall they all die!" she screamed.

"Alja this isn't you. You're talking crazy." But she seemed strangely contained even in her anger, her figure rigid, hands fisted at her sides. She looked as if she was about to explode.

"Oh yes it's me! It's just a part of me you didn't know before. You think you're the only one with darkness inside? Yeah! You think you're so unique. But you're not!" she spat at him, the fire in her tone receding to give way to a dangerous kind of chill.

Kaleb had the very distinct notion she had just told him something very important, but she went on before he could follow up the thought.

"You think I am better than you because my body count is only seven? You're Silent. You could tune out that your victims were sentient beings. I killed in _spite_ of knowing, of feeling exactly what I was doing to them. I was going against my very nature. Now who's the monster?"

"That's not the same. You're not evil." He refused to believe she was consumed by the same darkness he had seen in so many of his race, the same darkness that lay inside him.

"I am an aberration. A healer turned into a weapon. You have no idea what I can do! I can make you kill for me! I could make everyone fall to my feet. I could torture them and make them love me for it!" That truth had been burning inside her for so long. Now the flames ate their way out without mercy.

"Alja you would never do those things. You're no monster." Kaleb felt a chill creep up his spine at the imagination of what Alja had said, because he knew she probably told the truth. He had simply never seen that potential in her.

"I am an empath who killed. I _am_ a Monster! I am just as dangerous as any Psy who dares to try a life without Silence! You should probably have me rehabilitated. – Ah no, you want your precious weapon, don't you? But what if I don't get stable enough to use me safely?"

"Rehabilitation is not an option for you."

"Why not? I am going crazy, insane. That's what we do when we're not Silent, isn't it?" Another hysterical laugh escaped Alja's throat. Part of her still registered what was happening. She'd always known that day would come: the day that proved that empaths were harder, but not impossible to drive insane. "You know the good thing about this? I don't care anymore!"

This wasn't leading anywhere, Kaleb thought. Alja might still be talking but reason wasn't working with her anymore. She wasn't so contained because she was about to explode, she was falling inside whatever horror lay inside her again. And it drove him insane that he had all this power but he couldn't take this pain out of her. He couldn't protect her from the one thing she really needed protection from: The darkness inside herself. It was not an enemy he could fight. Not the way he was used to fight.

He had to try something else to get her out. _Touch._ He knew it would help, but he couldn't risk having her too close again. Brutality was the only other thing he could come up with. So he shook her out of it – literally. He grabbed her upper arms tightly and shook her hard to bring her focus back out, using even harsher words. "You're an Arrow. Someone who is in control instead of breaking under the pressure of some psychological warfare tricks." Because that was exactly what Ming did to her. "I know you can keep it up better than that. So pull yourself together and use whatever skill you usually use to get a grip on this. Then we will find another solution."

The physical stimulation and his unfeeling words finally got through. "I'm not breaking. I'm an Arrow. I'm an Arrow." Alja's voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. "I am in control. There is only one me," she repeated that over and over, while she wrenched the anger of her dark part down with sheer force of will. But she couldn't risk another split. She had to endure the pain that came with it. And she finally understood why so many of her race gave in to violent forms of insanity: The anger was easier than the pain, the suffering, the helplessness against a world that forced her to suppress her very nature.

After a while she pulled away from him, her eyes clear but restless once more. Her voice was calm and so desperate Kaleb instantly wished her anger right back. But he let her go the instant she reacted, not daring to touch her any longer than absolutely necessary.

"There is no other solution. I lied when I said I _deal_ with the residual. Because I don't." With the rage dissipating every word she said held pure resignation. "I hate Silence and yet I sometimes envy you for it. You'll never heave to know how it is to feel every last frightened moment of their lives. But I know. Their deaths are burned into my soul." She thumped a fist against her chest where she could already feel the guilt and horror uncurl. There was no way to halt the momentum now. The residual would crash in and it wouldn't let her get out. And she couldn't fight it on her own, not anymore. "And their voices haunt me. They haunt me in my dreams and every waking moment, calling for me to join them. They are so tempting."

In those last words sounded a deep longing that was accompanied by a faint and very distant smile. Kaleb felt a shudder run down his back. Because he knew exactly, what she was talking about. He had buried that knowledge deep in the core of his mind under layer upon layer of Silence. He had seen it once and slammed the door on it to never open it again. It was a wonder Alja hadn't broken so far. She must have been dancing on the edge of insanity all the time. Just like himself. And he had no solution to offer. Locking the darkness under Silence hadn't even worked for him – much less was it likely to do anything for her. "There must be another way to tune them down. You said you can balance it out with something else."

The voices in her head were already too loud to let her hear the shiver of desperation in his. "I can't. I have exhausted all my strategies."

For a moment he thought about leaving her alone. He had sworn not to allow himself any more risk. But he couldn't. He had tried so hard to be reasonable, tried so hard to keep away from her. But he couldn't bear to leave her like that. Not when he knew, when he _felt_ so precisely what she needed. He just wasn't good enough to go. He'd do what it took no matter the cost. "What about touch? It has helped you before. I can give you that."

_What?!_ He was only going to make it worse. She knew he couldn't give her what she really needed, only a bland taste of it. And it would make the darkness in her scream even louder for the 'more' she'd never get. "No you can't! You don't feel! You don't even know what –"

The rest of her sentence was lost, when he pulled her into his arms. And when she tried to struggle, he just pressed her closer, holding her head to his chest. His voice, when he spoke was so calm it seemed almost gentle.

"I am someone who wants to give you comfort, for whatever reasons. And it will not harm me. Can't that be enough? Just for now."

She wanted to tell him 'no', but she had longed for this so badly, she found she did not care whether it would ever be enough. She just wanted to take all she could. She needed his closeness so badly, there wasn't even place for guilt about not deserving solace. It just felt so right. He felt right. And what surprised her most: he felt safe. And she knew it wasn't only the touch that helped her. It was Kaleb. Only he could soothe the scorching anger and the desperate fear inside her. Only he could keep her demons at bay.

Kaleb felt it the moment Alja gave in. Her arms came around him, her fingers curling into his back, her shaking frame pressing close to his body. How much pain had she been holding back all the time? It made the raging dissonance in his brain seem negligible. He held her for long, silent minutes before speaking again. "Let me take you to your rooms. You need to recover, physically and mentally."

Her shields flexed instantly. _So much trust_. It broke him. How did he deserve such trust?

Alja felt the world blur around her and the light change. The next moment they stood in her bedroom and she felt her legs being swept away under her. Kaleb swung her up onto his arms to carry her to her bed. When she looked up at his face she saw nothing but steely determination and focus. She felt telekinetic energy flow out of her shields and saw the covers on her bed shift away. Then the energy tugged at her boots and she had to allow it close enough to her body to remove them. And without breaking contact to her body Kaleb put her down on the bed and lay beside her.

Why did he do this? How could he even? Alja didn't want to think about it. She just wanted to hide in his arms and forget everything outside.

Insane. She knew she must have gone insane. No one in their right mind would feel this safe in the heart of the trouble around her and in the arms of a man like Kaleb Krychek. "I'm broken. And I can't be fixed," she murmured unaware what she even wanted to say, her eyes growing strangely heavy.

"No you're strong, too strong to break. You just need some rest. Sleep! I will stay and make sure you're alright," he answered, sounding less cold than ever.

Yes, when he was there the nightmares wouldn't come, Alja thought. And within a few breaths she relaxed into a state of blissful unconsciousness curling into the heat of his body and the safe-scent of him.

Kaleb heard Alja's breathing become more even and felt the tension leave her body. He waited for her to drop out of the Net, but she didn't. Instead she shifted to cuddle close to his side, one arm reaching across his chest and up to his neck, where her hand landed on his skin. A shockwave of sensation shot through him, closely followed by the response of the dissonance. But he barely registered it, mesmerized by what happened next: Liquid shields flowed around him on the physical and the mental plane alike. But Alja's face was peaceful, her eyes slightly moving behind her closed lids. She was asleep. Only instead of dropping out she hid her mind by linking to his. She bound herself to him in her weakest moment. How on earth was he supposed to resist any longer? Somewhere in his mind there still was the idea that Alja might be a trap. The problem was just he no longer cared. Even if she turned out to be his nemesis, she was still _his_ and he was going to keep her.

Which left him with a problem: Holding on to his conditioning was definitely not working. The emotions just came crashing in harder. And they still got mixed up with pictures of the girl he had killed and the sun-like mind he had sworn to save and protect – memories that no longer held the impact they once had. He had looked for salvation, for his own personal redemption to a dream the NetMind had showed to him. But maybe it was not that mystic woman with a mind like the sun, who might or might not hide in the depths of the Net, who could give him back what he had lost. Maybe it was this beautiful Arrow with her many faces and her sky-fall eyes that saw far too deep inside him, who understood him on a level no one else ever could. Because she had her own twisted darkness. Because in a way she was just as broken and lost as he was.

_I could torture them and make them love me for it…_

_A loaded gun with no safety catch… _

Maybe they were both doomed, but he couldn't keep hiding behind Silence, when all Alja needed was emotion. It didn't matter if the whole planet paid for his recklessness. If Alja needed him to feel he would. And he couldn't risk the memories he'd connected to the Protocol to wake the monster. Maybe without them he could forget its existence again and be the man Alja needed.

So while he held her, he unraveled the parts of his conditioning that held memories of the swan girl and _Her_ – the sun-mind. _I swear I will still try to find _You_. But I have to be able to take care of her. I can't let her suffer – not even for _You_._ A silent promise to the dark void of the PsyNet before he started to build whatever poor, irresponsible excuse for a proper conditioning he could come up with. Although the really conditioned parts of the Protocol had stopped working ever since Alja was close to him, he could still set mechanisms that would induce pain when he was close to losing control over his abilities. That would have to be enough.

There was only one part of his mind that had to stay barred. One part Alja could never see. He left the vault with the memories of the murder and the monster locked, even reinforcing its walls with energy that had fueled the now disabled Protocol mechanisms before.


	39. Chapter 39

**Chapter 39**

When Alja woke it was to find herself still linked to Kaleb on the mental plane. He had stayed! He lay on his back exactly as he had done when they had lain down, even though it must have been several hours. It had been early afternoon, when he had brought her to her rooms. Now it was getting dark. She had never slept so long since she dropped out to do it. But now she had rested more peaceful than ever, with her head on his shoulder, his arm holding her close and her hand cupping the side of his neck – skin to skin. The contact had saved her psyche from a fatal meltdown – again. The realization made all her questions, all her doubts come back fast. She was sure he couldn't, wouldn't do all of this just to maintain the function of a weapon he obviously didn't intend to use. It made no sense.

But then she remembered what he'd said, when she'd threatened him on the mountain meadow: _Threats don't work well on me. I usually see them as a challenge._

Yes, a challenge, a power play. That was something a true Psy valued above all else. And he had won. He had bested her in the one domain that should have been her greatest strength, because he'd found out that it was also her greatest weakness.

It was the only explanation for this.

And it let her no pride left.

She allowed herself to indulge in the stolen moment for a few more precious seconds, until the pain got too hard to bear. Then she lifted her head to look at him to discover he was watching her, intently, still as stone. And she knew what he was waiting for: "I yield. Please stop!" she said quietly.

"What?" Kaleb had spent the minutes before Alja woke thinking about how he could even begin to explain what he felt for her. Her statement tore him right out of it.

"You won. You found the one part of me that hasn't been broken so far. And I'm begging you: Don't go on. Don't break my heart." With that she sat up, lifting her hand off his skin and retracting her shields.

Kaleb felt the loss like a stab to the heart and was too confused to react for a second. And before he could find any words to explain to Alja how wrong she was her face froze in shock.

Spiders, it felt like spiders! Thousands of little, spiky legs crawling over her shields, pointed teeth injecting icy venom into their surface. It wasn't the way she'd expected him to react. But it was clear the game was over.

At first Kaleb thought she was having another breakdown. But then she murmured a single, confused word that set his mind on high alert:

"Trackers?!"

Kaleb switched to the mental plane at once. And the shock he'd seen in Alja hit him as well. There were at least a hundred tracker-viruses sucking to her shields. Their silvery threads were weaving a viral net all around her mind. But the worst was the way her shields reacted: Alja was obviously fighting it, but the insidious viruses caused spots of her shields to crystallize like ice flowers and where they did, the waterfall of her shields stopped flowing.

Alja was about to give up fighting whatever Kaleb had finally chosen to end her. But through the freezing structure of her shields she saw sharp black bands of telepathic energy wrapping around her from all sides, aiming to cut her off the Net completely. And she knew it wasn't Kaleb. Although she couldn't see the attacker, she had seen that brand of telepathic prison often enough, while she worked as an Arrow.

This was Ming's work.

He was trapping her so he'd have all the time in the world to get through her shields. And he would. Those tracker viruses had been built and calibrated exactly for her kind of shields. They'd freeze them and once they'd lost their liquid consistency they could be broken by a telepathic blow if it was strong enough. And it would be. Ming was a cardinal.

Kaleb considered trying to remove the spiderlike tracker-viruses from Alja's shields but decided it was easier if he got her away first. So he let part of his mind switch back to the physical world and grabbed her face in both hands. "Relink! I'll get you out."

She tried. Her shields wouldn't move. Not enough.

Stupid! She should have known they'd try again. And the attack had been cleverly planned: The trackers had lurked around Kaleb's well visible star, expecting Alja to link to him. But this time they'd waited until she _un_linked, effectively showing where she was. And once they'd attacked they could block him from moving her mind away again.

Suddenly a bolt of energy shot past her mind, made of lightning shaped like a snake. It crashed somewhere past her and revealed a cardinal bright star. Kaleb had crushed Ming's disguise. The black bands retreated but more and more trackers collected around her shields. They had to be coming from somewhere else. Before she could think about it further she heard Ming's voice, unshaken, cold.

"Trying to kill me? Don't you know I'd probably take millions with me?" He was right. The Net in its current state wouldn't tolerate the death of another Councilor without severe consequences.

"You're trying to take something that is mine. Do you really think I care about collateral damage?" Kaleb's counter question held all the cold, merciless power he hadn't let her see during the last weeks. It made her shudder to realize what he might be capable of.

"I wasn't talking to you, Kaleb. I don't suppose she left you in a state to be reasoned with. But our little empath here, I'm sure she cares."

Oh god, he was right! As much as Alja wanted the man dead, she couldn't be the cause of more devastation to the Net and her people. And Ming knew. He was playing on it.

"Well, pity I don't care what she cares about."

With that another bolt of lightning shot past Alja. This time Ming's star flickered and moved a little further away as if to get out of range. But before he got far, a wave of lightning-like energy flared out from Kaleb's star to encompass the whole area around them. It didn't do much to Ming but revealed two more pristine stars. One was the source of the spiderlike trackers that kept crawling deeper into her shields. Tatiana and Shoshanna. Stripped of their disguise they started to attack Kaleb too. – They didn't even scratch his defenses. His response however shook the Net. Alja had never seen telepathic energy like that. It felt almost physical; more like Tk. But that wasn't possible inside the Net. Or was it? Alja watched the three other Councilors reinforce their shields. It was what she was trained to do, and she knew it wouldn't be enough against the brand of power Kaleb had just released. Three Councilors! That meant countless deaths!

"Kaleb stop!" she screamed on the physical and mental plane alike.

"I won't let them take you!" His answer came out adamant like the hardest rock, while he effortlessly deflected another round of attacks.

Alja's mind raced. Logic, something logical must work. "Right but risking a collapse in the Net is inefficient! Just hit me hard enough that I lose consciousness and drop out. Please it's not worth it you must see that!"

The hell he would. Hurting Alja was not an option. But the desperation in her plea made him pause. Fucked up as it was, killing them would hurt her too. "There's another way out of this." Only he had hoped he'd never have to show this side of his ability, not to her at least. But he would save her even if she ran as fast as she could when she saw what he could do. Even if it meant he had to give her up after all.

So he did the one thing he knew would separate them effectively from their attackers. He fused the two varieties of his ability and ripped a crevice in the very fabric of the Net between them and the other Councilors. Under his strength it tore just like paper and every mental connection snapped. The Net rippled under the psychic earthquake it caused and an unbearable mental noise hit them for a split second. Then the shockwave kicked them both out of the psychic plane – along any other mind in the range of a small country.

Alja jumped up from the bed looking at him terrified. Just as he'd thought she would. Her breath came out in jagged gasps. Her eyes were restlessly skating through the room. She was panicked.

"You almost killed them!" But if she was honest, that wasn't what scared her most. Her mortification at finally seeing Kaleb's deadly potential was quickly shoved aside by the realization what had almost happened to her: Her shields were no longer invincible. The one place she had always been able to retreat to no longer safe.

Kaleb kept his distance and held his hands up in a soothing attitude, trying not to scare her further. Then he tried to explain. "It is not as bad as it looked. And it's over now. Just breathe deeply." He couldn't have her lose it now. His own emotions were too whipped up to react in any way reasonable. Seeing her frozen shields had almost driven him mad with fear for her.

He had no idea how bad it was, Alja thought. He hadn't felt them creep through her shields like no one had ever before. But he still kept talking.

"There was no one in the vicinity to be harmed. I can fix the tear later. I had to do it to get you out." He was having trouble to keep his own voice calm right now. But he needed her to get it back together enough to allow a teleport. He had to get her out before one of them cracked irrevocably.

And slowly she understood him. Had she been in any other condition she would have been ashamed to admit it, but now that the immediate threat to the Net was gone and she didn't feel the residual of a thousand deaths, what he had done to the Net and anyone in it was the least of her worries. Because what they'd almost done to her was even worse for the entire Net. "I don't fucking care what you did to get me out of there! They were getting inside. No one can ever come inside my shields!" The thought made the panic rise even higher. Inside her shields had been her sanctuary. They could hurt her body and wear her psyche down, but no one had ever gotten inside her mind.

"They won't get close to you again. I'll take care of it. Try to calm down and flex your shields. We need to get to a secure location." He felt her shields give in at once. He had thought it would take a lot more to convince her to do it after what she'd just seen him do. He was beyond surprise. "You're not afraid of what _I_ did but that they came through some minor layers of your shielding?"

She stared at him in disbelief, her head shaking indignantly. "Just get me out of here."

The next second they were in the cabin at the mountain top – his private hiding place – where he gathered her into his arms at once.

_Oh fuck no!_ She tried to push him away. But he didn't let her go. He just pulled her closer, pressing his lips on her hair, on her face. The words he mumbled in between the kisses were spoken fierce and husky.

"I won't let them harm you. … I promise I won't. … You're safe… And I will keep you safe no matter what! … You're safe…"

"Get away from me! I'm not losing it again. I'm just fucking scared! Why do you want to break me so badly? I admitted that you beat me. Isn't that enough?" She pushed at him angrily.

He seemed reluctant to let go, but allowed her some space, leaving only his hands at the side of her arms to steady her, because she seemed as if she was about to sway. But he was rubbed so raw the words just rushed out of him. "What the hell, Alja! You're an empath. Don't you sense this is real? Don't you know that I'm burning up for you?"

The words struck like lightning. "What?" Alja didn't believe her ears. And she couldn't think straight. Everything just crashed in on her mind. And then she felt it: an incredible pressure against the blocks she'd put over her empathic senses. She opened them just a fraction and was hit by a storm of raw emotion, desire and protectiveness that was just as violent as the one inside herself. "But I didn't project…" Yet she must have, her subconscious using her ability trying to secure her survival in mortal terror. She tried to reign in any emotional impulses, tried to stop whatever projection she failed to sense, but Kaleb's sudden closeness was just overpowering her senses.

"As if you needed that to make me fall for you! – I simply need to feel when I'm with you. From the moment I first laid eyes on you, it was there. And I no longer care what it costs me. I just want you close to me. I need you like I need to breathe!" All the ice, all the control had gone from his voice and left it raw, sounding like the pure, aching need for her he had tried to suppress for too long. "So if you want me to stop, because _you_ don't feel that kind of attraction, say it and I will never touch you again. But don't think I don't care. Never think I am cold towards you!"

He stepped back giving her more space, his hands still on the sides of her arms, waiting for her response.

She was dumbstruck for agonizingly long seconds. The meaning of his words was working itself through her reason, while she looked into his magnificent eyes that were suddenly so full of life, full of emotion. When she finally found her voice again she could barely stammer the words she wanted to say. "Don't…" was all she got out.

He let his arms drop immediately. Feeling a surge of wild disappointment he forced himself to increase the distance between them further. He would never touch her if she said 'no', even if it tore out the heart that had just awakened in his chest.

But that was not what she had meant. "Don't. Ever. Stop!" she whispered at last, unable to stand letting him break the contact she so craved for.

His arms were around her the second she said it, his lips crushing on hers in a kiss so wild it took her breath away and tore through her body like white lightning.

It was just what she needed. Touch, sensation, intensity, everything that would make her feel alive, make her forget the panic and the threat that had just come too close. And then there was no holding back. There were no barriers left. They both had fought this craving for too long.

Alja kissed Kaleb back with desperate need, while he backed her against the wall of the cabin with a few steps, pressing his body hard against hers. She dug her fingers into his shoulders to get him even closer but she knew she needed more.

"Skin!" was the single husky word she got out against his lips, while she hustled her arms between them. She fumbled at the buttons of his shirt shortly before she decided it wasn't worth the time and ripped it open from top to bottom sending the buttons flying in every direction. Eyes lingering on the sight of the gorgeous planes of his chest and stomach she pushed it down as fast as possible, not bearing to let his hands leave her skin for the time it took to get rid of it. But they were back a second later peeling off her black tank top and the practical sports bra in one fluent move. His breath caught for a moment when he saw the lush curves of her bare breasts. Then his hands were on them shaping and stroking, burning on her touch-depraved skin.

Kaleb felt the pain of the dissonance set in, but no pictures of murder started flashing before his eyes. He tried to diffuse some bursts of Tk somewhere outside while his hands stayed focused on exploring Alja's creamy skin. She sucked in a breath, when he brushed his thumbs over her taut nipples. He immediately repeated the movement.

Her hands clawed into his shoulders instinctively, feeling his muscles coiled under hot skin. It made the place where her thighs joined turn to liquid. Then her mouth found his again. This time she let him feel her teeth.

The sensation sent his blood rushing to his groin. He had to feel her, taste her! Pushing one thigh between hers he pressed her harder against the wall, locking her in place and lowered his head to put his mouth on those gorgeous, soft mounds.

Alja already thought she'd explode with sensation when she felt his erection push hard against her lower abdomen. But when he sucked one of her nipples between his lips to let his tongue flick over it, the world blacked out for a second. "Kaleb!" It came out a gasp. Her head dropped back against the wall.

Kaleb found he liked it very much to hear her say his name in that needy voice that no longer held any hint of the controlled soldier she had played all the time. It stroked part of his ego he hadn't known existed. He rewarded her by grazing his teeth over the side of her breast. Then repeated the caress on the other side.

Alja's upper body arched involuntarily towards his mouth while her hips jerked forward without conscious control increasing the maddening friction of his thigh against the sensitive place at the apex of her thighs. She had never wanted anything like she wanted Kaleb's touch. She reached down to undo his belt and pants, while he kissed his way up her breasts, licking off the thin sheen off sweat that started to cover their upper sides.

She tasted even better than he'd dreamt.

His dream! NO! How could he have forgotten?

His control slipped further and further with every greedy kiss, every burning caress from Alja. And when she stroked her fingers down his abdomen into the waistband of his briefs, the cabin finally began to shake around them.

Alja's wrists were pinned above her head by strong male hands a mere second later. Kaleb lifted his body off hers but his self-restraint didn't suffice to retreat when she leaned forward and kissed him hard in protest of being stopped from doing as she wanted.

And oh how he wanted to let her. Something clattered behind him. Probably some utensils dropping from the shelf in the wet-room. "Stop me Alja. I am going to hurt you." A distressed statement that was almost lost in the wildness of the kiss.

But Alja had understood. She pulled back her head to look directly into his eyes. And when she answered there was an almost angry determination in her words. "No you won't. You're gonna make me forget all of this fucked up mess before I go insane." Her voice turning softer but no less determined she added. "I'll do the same for you."

"I can't. My powers…" he helplessly tried again, knowing he wouldn't be able to stop if she didn't make him.

"Focus on my shields. They can take it." And with that she lowered her head and bit down on the curve of his neck. She didn't leave him a choice. Her teeth left a mark that pulsed with the most exquisite pleasure-pain – and shattered the last bit of his resistance. Reluctantly he let go of any attempt to direct the psychic impulses that escaped his mind away from the woman in front of him and turned them on her instead. The outer world at least stopped trembling and her shields drank in his energy as if they were as starved for it as her body seemed for his touch.

And he'd give her that as well.

Her loose cargo pants dropped to the floor the moment he'd loosened the belt. And when he came up to claim her lips again she locked her arms around his neck and jumped to wrap her legs around his waist, pressing her hot core against his massive erection.

No way in hell was she going to let him stop. Not if it was the end of the world. And it very well could be with Kaleb's powers spinning out of control. Alja was beyond caring. If this was madness, so be it.

Kaleb could feel the heat of her through the fabric of their remaining clothing and it was instinct to grab her thighs, pin her to the wall once more and settle himself against her to intensify the sensation. It made her moan out in pleasure.

But he still needed her even closer.

So he slid one hand around her hips to hold her up, the other wrapping around her nape pulling her head closer so he didn't have to break the kiss when he lifted her off the wall and turned to lower them both on the bed with a speed that shouldn't have been possible with his Tk blocked.

Alja felt the weight of him settle on her – hot, hard and gloriously male, the sensation enough to ignite her whole body, if it hadn't already been on fire. She let her hands run down his back, pulling him even further down towards her. The heat of his skin on hers only fueled the hunger for him deep inside. And when he kissed his way down her neck towards her breasts again, she knew she couldn't take one more second without him inside her. She frantically pushed down his briefs and pants using her hands and even her feet. But when she wanted to touch him she found her hand pulled away again.

Kaleb reacted on instinct. If he let her touch him now he would lose it for sure. But when he leaned forward to place her hand beside her head the tip of his erection touched her. And he felt her, even through her panties. Hot. Wet. Ready.

He froze in a desperate attempt to restrain himself. But he knew he was done for. Only the iron control he had exercised for decades kept him from losing control completely.

Alja felt the tension between them rise impossibly higher. Kaleb's body radiated electric heat inches above her and his eyes were full of wild desire. She could feel it as strong as her own. And she was almost certain she didn't even need her empathy. She could feel him under her skin, in her blood: Like electricity and his very personal brand of darkness. His emotions as savage and raw as hers. This was so much more than she could have ever imagined, when her senses were numbed, her emotional range dulled by the adjusted Silence Protocol.

She rolled her hips towards him in invitation, rubbing herself against the hard length of him.

It was all it took.

He reached down for the flimsy fabric that still separated them and with a single strong pull the soft cotton of her panties gave way. The next moment he pushed inside her unable to hold back any longer.

She screamed.

An almost painful pleasure shot through her entire body as he stretched her to the limits but she reflexively clung to him urging him to go deeper.

Kaleb had never thought he would like to hear a woman scream, but Alja's voice was liquid fire in his veins. And it made his body move in a primal rhythm beyond conscious control. He tried to go slow, but when he felt her muscles clench around him it proved impossible. He must not hurt her! He tried to hold on to that last conscious thought he was capable of. But she kept pulling him impossibly closer, her fingers clawing into his back, the bites of her nails delicious on his skin. She craved this just as desperately as him. The realization made him finally give in and he let the violence of passion sweep him under.

Alja wrapped her legs around Kaleb's waist to take him deeper inside her. Even as the sensation threatened to overpower her she dug her heels in the backs of his thighs urging him to go faster, harder. Her dark desires had never been so fully merged to her self and even the remnants of death inside her seemed to burn up in the flames of passion. She had never felt so whole, even as her body writhed under the weight of incandescent pleasure.

It was a raw storm of emotion and sensation that gripped them both and tossed them around without mercy.

Kaleb drank every pleasured cry from Alja's lips only giving her time to breathe when he let his mouth wander down her neck to the lush temptation of her breasts. He wanted to drown in that taste, that scent of life that was so genuinely Alja's.

And he gave her exactly what she needed, driving into her with a raw power that should have frightened her. Instead it made her nerves explode. And when the orgasm tore through her with a violence that had lights explode in her head, she screamed his name.

Even Kaleb's control had a limit. Alja's scream and the way her body shook under him just pushed him over the edge. He felt his body lock under the overload of sensation and the last thing he saw was a crackle of sparks that erupted around them where his Tk crashed into her shields with full force. And with a low, male gasp he buried his face against the side of hers.


	40. Chapter 40

**Chapter 40**

Slowly Kaleb resurfaced from the endless depths of pleasure and found Alja was still shivering slightly under his body. Had he hurt her? "Alja, are you…" he started lifting his head, not daring to move any more since her legs were still hooked around his, possessively holding him in place.

"Sh… just give me two more minutes." Her voice was a little rough and shaky but also somehow lazy, satisfied as she run her hand through the thick silk of his hair pulling his head down again.

And Arrow that she was Alja allowed herself to indulge exactly one hundred and twenty seconds. The time was just long enough to discover that it was impossible to wrap her mind around what had just happened. She'd have to take this one step at a time. So she slowly started to move, forcing some tension back into limbs that seemed to have turned to jelly.

Kaleb lifted his upper body the moment he sensed her movement. When he met her gaze, a gentle but unbreakable fist closed around his heart. It was as if he'd never truly seen her until now, the stars in her eyes softly glowing in a shade that seemed warmer than the cold silver of usual cardinals. It turned them into islands of light in an endless ocean. How could he have ever existed without being with Alja? How could he have ever believed he'd be able to resist her? "I can never let you go now."

"Then don't." It was all that had to be said. All she could say with her voice shaking from the overwhelming emotions she had stifled for so long. And it was almost frightening how right it all felt: their bodies joined as close as possible, the hard lines of Kaleb's face set into stark contrast by his gaze that was crushingly tender.

The smile that flew over her face was so soft he just had to kiss her.

Slow. Deep. Seductive. Savoring the experience this time.

"You feel," she mumbled amazed, the moment he broke the kiss to drink in the sight of her again.

"Did you really not sense that before?"

"My strength lies in projecting not detecting emotion and… Well, I guess a part of me knew. But… it's not a part I usually listen to," she admitted suddenly self-conscious. She waited for the wicked little voice to make a snide remark like _I told you so_. And she could hear it. But was more like she was talking to herself, which was probably a little weird but not insane. She was no longer at breaking point. That part was one with her for once, the painful split inside her faded like an old scar.

Slowly Kaleb let his body slip off hers and came to lie close to her side not wanting to separate their bodies completely already. It gave him the opportunity to let his gaze run down along her body. Her braid had loosened enough to send a few strands of hair flowing free. Her breasts were laced with the marks of his kisses, her skin still flushed all over. The remains of her panties were caught in the handle of the blade she still had strapped to her shin. "I like where that part of you gets you." One side of his mouth kicked up into a wry smile that had Alja hold her breath.

Could a man look any more gorgeous? "I like where it gets you too." Her heart beat kicked up when she lifted her hand to brush a strand of hair out of his forehead. Now that the fury of passion had cooled a little, touching him seemed almost like a forbidden action again. He looked at her with utter focus but didn't move away. She still couldn't believe it. After everything that had been going on, it just seemed unreal. – Which reminded her that there was a world outside the cabin they'd escaped to. "We have to –" Well what exactly did they have to do now? "…go back soon."

"Yes, although the Net is probably busy for the moment."

"Busy realizing that the fighting has begun for real."

"Yes," he answered warily. And busy reorganizing the Net where he'd messed it up.

He didn't want this moment to end so soon but he could already see Alja's soldier-mind starting to work behind her eyes.

"That means no one can know what happened between us. Not now." Not before the war was over and the Psy had learned that emotion was more than a weakness for their enemies to prey on.

"No one will. I guess we've both proven we're good enough at concealing the fact we feel."

"At least you finally accept that you're not better off Silent."

Kaleb didn't answer for a while. For too long.

"You regret what happened?" It was the hardest question but she wouldn't flinch away from his answer.

"No I don't. But I should. Well I shouldn't. I should feel nothing at all." _Wrong answer!_ Some part of him screamed. But logic forced the words out anyway.

"You still think Silence is an option for you?" A new kind of fire sparked in her eyes.

Wow, the woman didn't leave him a minute to rest, Kaleb thought. "Having you close obviously doesn't leave me a choice in the matter. But I might have to go back if this doesn't work out." Denying it would be pointless. They would not be able to hide from that brutal truth.

Still Alja's reaction was to bolt up to a sitting position and glare at him as if he'd insulted her.

"You really want to do that? Silence is wrong Kaleb, wrong to the core! Look what it's done to us: We're a bunch of paranoid icicles, who can trust no one. When the other Councilors started attacking me I still thought it was you who wanted to kill me – right after you'd spent half the working-day holding me!" In hindsight Alja had to admit she really had been blind. Worse, she had stubbornly refused to see the obvious. "We're so drilled to expect to be betrayed, hurt or even killed at every corner that we don't recognize love even when it's right in front of us!"

Fuck! She hadn't intended to use such a strong word as 'love' and now it was out, she suddenly felt very vulnerable. And sitting naked in front of a man who told her he considered going back to Silence right after he slept with her, wasn't exactly boosting her self-esteem. "I'll go shower." With that she jumped up and vanished behind the wall that divided off the wet room. Confronted with herself in the mirror she had to stifle a bitter laugh as she remembered her human acquaintances lamenting about how sleeping with someone never really solved problems but always created more. Well obviously that rule applied even in her exceptional situation.

But just when she'd stepped under the water she felt strong arms closing tightly around her from behind.

"I don't _want_ to be Silent," Kaleb said so close to her ear it was a caress on her skin. "I want to be with you. More than anything else. So much, I'm not sure I'd let you go if you wanted to." Because he wasn't good after all. "But I'm also trying to be honest with you. That's what you wanted, isn't it?"

She wanted to say something but the words stuck in her throat. She had sensed enough of his feelings and knew enough of her own to be certain that everything had changed between them. But right now that just meant chaos. None of them knew how to proceed from where that tempest of emotion had thrown them. So she just nodded leaning into him under the soothing downpour of hot water. Of course she wanted him to be honest, but that didn't mean she wanted to hear a truth she tried to ignore almost since the moment she'd met him.

"I'm not used to losing control like that." After all there was no denying that was exactly what had just happened. "And there's a good reason I shouldn't. Or one day there might not be a world left where I can be with you."

Knowing he was right was what hurt the most. She'd grown up around those who had close to no other option than Silence to keep their lethal powers in check. And Kaleb didn't belong to these people for one reason only: He was even more dangerous than the Arrows.

She hated feeling so vulnerable. It was what she'd worked to avoid all her life. She might always have been closer to emotion, but that didn't make this any easier for her. She felt like she'd fall apart the moment he'd let her go. So she just held his arms in place with her own interlacing her fingers with his. But he didn't let her go. He only turned her in his arms pulling her as close as humanly possible. Lost for words she simply started kissing him again.

It was irresponsible, idiotic even, Kaleb thought. They should return right now, face the damage he'd done to the Net. But he couldn't bring himself to stop. The world didn't matter now. All that mattered was to take that hurt look off Alja's face. He forced himself to dip into the Net for a second to get out a short message.

_Delenko! _

_Sir, what… _

_I have a situation. I need you to stall for me… Whatever is going down out there. _

To his credit the man didn't even ask. _I'll manage,_ was all he said. Kaleb had never expected his choice of personnel would pay in that way, but then he had no capacity to think about it any longer, his desire for Alja drawing him in once more. After all this time trying to resist, it had built to a level where it was a wonder they had even made it to the shower without being all over each other again.

Kaleb loved Alja again lifted up against that wall of the shower-cubicle. Slow, deep and with all the tenderness that had been missing from their first explosive union.

And Alja discovered that the intense focus she had so often seen in Kaleb was now trained entirely on her. He took in every little facet of her, every reaction, every movement, every little sound of pleasure or complaint. Exploring her. Learning her. And there was so much she wanted to learn with him. If they only got the time… but in his overwhelming presence the thoughts slid off her mind like her fingers on the wet cubicle wall.

Well, in the end the stainless steel really wasn't so bleak at all.

* * *

Kaleb left the shower with a clipped "Be quick!" right after he had eased her down from another mind-blowing orgasm. And her soldier senses snapped back on. She finished washing her hair quickly and stepped out to be greeted by another snapped command. "Get dressed!" A pile of fresh clothes dropped right outside her shields. Kaleb vanished from the doorway to the wet room the same second.

"What happened?" She poked out into the main room, concerned with Kaleb's sudden hurry. Of course they had indulged for too long.

"Nothing happened." Rough, clipped words. And was that torment on his face? "I just can't think." Insecurely she watched him for a moment longer. He was already dressed but – wow, he was devouring her with his eyes. When she didn't react he added: "You need to get dressed or you have seconds before I'm buried inside you again."

"Oh." She kept her wicked smile to herself for once and ducked back in to get her clothes on as fast as possible.

When she stepped out of the cabin where Kaleb was waiting, she found it was completely dark outside. For a moment she was shocked that her inner clock had betrayed her. But they'd left Moscow in the early evening. And with the time difference it made sense, it was night here. A night almost as clear as the one after the ball when Kaleb had pushed away the clouds for her. Suddenly that seemed ages ago. Everything had changed so fast and so fundamentally. No wonder she'd lost track of time.

Kaleb took a deep breath before facing Alja. Now that he'd felt her naked body so lush and sensuous against his own he didn't trust his self-restraint a whit. She gave the impression of the perfect Arrow once more: Dressed in her black uniform and combat boots, the hair he would have liked to stroke tied back into a severe braid as usual. It wasn't enough. He still couldn't keep his hands off of her. Without thinking he pulled her braid to the front, let it slide through his fingers, already addicted to the feel of it. This was going to be a problem, when they had to be in public.

"We have to talk to the staff as soon as we're back in the HQ. None of them know what happened but the damage in the Net tells them enough to expect something crucial. And I cannot hide that." At least he could think clear enough to plan ahead again. "Officially you were with me in a military operation. We were attacked and retaliated. You'll be with me at all times from now on. Since you're my shield specialist that's justifiable. We'll figure out the rest later."

"Ok." A single word. Focused like the Arrow she was. It helped him focus too.

"We'll admit you're an Arrow but nothing more."

"Reveal the obvious secret to hide the dangerous one. Yes, that should work." Still calmly spoken but her hands landed on his chest, smoothing over the fresh, crisp shirt he'd put on. Oh how she wanted to feel his skin again. But she forced herself to stay concentrated. The sooner she practiced it while he was close the better. It would be much harder now she knew he craved it as much as she did. "What else is important before we go back?"

"I need to know why they came for you." He put his hands on her hips, testing how much contact he could manage and stay in control.

"You already know Ming wants me dead." But that wasn't all. And Kaleb knew it. The question was: Was she ready to trust him on that level?

"Yes, but the other two wouldn't risk a confrontation with me over a flawed Arrow, who hurt Ming's pride once." His hands tightened on her.

She dropped her gaze, thinking hard what to say next. "No they wouldn't," she admitted, but the words were harder to get out the closer they got to the truth.

"So why would they?" He gripped her chin. The hold was gentle but he forced her to meet his eyes, his other hand still firmly on her hip.

"You're not going back to Silence." Stubbornness in every word.

"And you're not going to let this go, are you?" But suddenly Kaleb found himself praying to an entity he had never believed in. _Don't let her say she made me feel all this with projection. Don't let that be the reason._ It would destroy him to hear it wasn't real. Worse, he found he didn't want to know even if it was the truth.

"It is important that I know exactly how think about Silence, before I tell you anymore."

"You already know. I believe Silence in general must fall for the Psy to survive. But for me – I'm more than dangerous. You just saw me tear the Net on a large scale." Holding her gaze he wrapped his arms around her waist, trying to soften the harsh truth with touch, unsure if it was more for her comfort of his own.

"That's what you did? Tear the Net?" Even the most perfidious skills of the Arrows only used the Net to carry their power, but no one could touch it, or even harm it. At least that was what Alja had always thought. But she'd caught a glimpse of the gaping hole in the streams of data that usually circulated through the Net. No person should have that power. And she simply refused to acknowledge the chill that thought gave her.

"You couldn't see?" Kaleb had never used this kind of power in the presence of others. He had never thought that they wouldn't even be able to see what he did.

"I just saw the dataflow broken and suddenly the others were gone and I was knocked out of the psychic plane." No hint of fear on her face. Just traces of a mind working concentrated.

"Then you saw the result. You must understand that I can't risk losing control."

_Control. _Alja began to think she'd be sick if she heard that word one more time. Control their abilities, control the monsters inside, control their emotions, their behavior … control, control, control. That was all their race ever did. And she was sick of it. She wanted them to just _be_. The fact that they couldn't, made her angry, angry and scared. "You don't know how close I was to giving up. I just – I can't lose you."

She stated it as a simple fact but he glimpsed her desperation under the Arrow's mask. It tore him up. And if he hadn't already decided to try to hold on to her for his own selfish interests, he'd sure as hell fight for her sake. "Then we'd better find a way to make this work. Now will you tell me why they were after you?"

"But that's just it. I don't know how to make it work! If I could just figure it out, none of us would need anything like Silence!" she blurted out. Why was it so damn hard to get the truth out? Well, because she'd spent literally all her life hiding it. But Kaleb was intelligent enough to help her along even after her more than enigmatic statements.

"You're talking about your empathy. That's the answer to all of this, isn't it?" When she still wouldn't talk he went on, able to feel the enormous weight of what he was about to hear. And he would hear it. She wouldn't close up to him now. "It's more than you admitted. How strong are you really? How far can you project?"

The look on her face turned almost apologetic, the tough soldier gave way to the far gentler creature inside. The one he wanted to protect with a fierceness that scared him. Then she lifted her face up to the darkness above them. He thought she was searching for an explanation until he realized her gaze was the answer. She didn't just stare into the darkness. She looked into the endless space filled with millions of stars.

And then finally the words made it out. Everything she was, her innermost secret stripped bare. "I should be able to reach the Net and everyone in it. That's how strong I am."

"But that would mean…" The impossible.

"You're not the only one." Not the only dual cardinal in existence.

Alja didn't realize how much she'd tensed until gentle hands touched her face, angled it carefully so he could press his lips on hers, the warmth of them melting her from within. Whatever reaction she'd expected from Kaleb, this was not it. But it was good, so good. And it muted at least a part of her fear and desperation.

Right in that moment Kaleb wanted nothing but to take that burden away from her. Because he understood the weight of that kind power, even if hers was the exact opposite of his. He had to try not to destroy the Net. She had to find a way to heal it. And right now they were both not doing the best job. Could fate get anymore ironic?

"You're not a weapon. You're a cure. – A cure from Silence," he whispered amazed against her lips. The words were simple but at that moment his focus, his whole view of the world shifted at that realization: A cure. For this madness the Council had forced upon them all. And there it was, that unflinching emotion he'd only ever felt a shadow of when he looked at the image of the untraceable mind the NetMind had made him seek: It was hope. And all of it revolved around Alja.

"Funny how it's just a question of perspective, isn't it?" she mumbled. Silent tears started streaking down her cheeks. "But I'm broken. I don't know how to do it. I just can't see the veins."

"What veins?"

"There should be veins all through the Net to transport the emotion like the lifeblood it is. But I can't find them. I fear Silence has left none." There finally she'd said it all. And it felt good. Kaleb watched her with his usual focus. She could all but see him working through what she told him, another mind sharing her burden. It might not bring her closer to the solution but it was something she'd always longed for, something that eased the pressure.

"Who knows about this?" Kaleb brushed his fingers across her cheek unable to stop himself from touching her. It still felt as if he'd never touched her before.

Alja leaned into the touch closing her eyes before she went on. "Ming knows how strong I am. Aden and Vasic know I'm important for the Net's stability somehow. But no one knows I'm the only one who can heal the Net."

"And how do _you_ know?" No one taught the empaths anymore, since they were officially forgotten. Yet Alja seemed to have very specific imagination of the task she had to fulfill.

"The NetMind told me." She said it as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

"You can speak to the NetMind?"

"Mostly it talks to me. But yes, I speak to it since I can think, probably longer."

He stared at her, surprised and amazed by every new fact she revealed. It was still hard to get his train of thoughts together but he realized they wouldn't be able to cover all of this right now. It was impossible to wrap his head around all of this. There were probably a myriad of things they didn't know about each other. They had a lot of talking to do, the next time he got her alone for long enough, even if that was not the first thing on his mind when he pictured being alone with her... But there was one more thing he wanted to know before they left: "Why now Alja? Why do you trust me now?" He knew physical attraction alone didn't guarantee mutual trust.

Somewhere in Alja's mind there was a small part that still warned her to reveal too much. But it whispered away into nothingness as she felt the truth and the honesty of Kaleb's emotions. And for the first time she truly perceived her empathy as a gift. "You feel. That's all I needed to know." And with a little bitterness she added. "And besides I don't have much to lose anymore."


	41. Chapter 41

**Chapter 41**

Vaughn was working on a new sculpture in his studio, when he felt a sudden tremor along the mating bond.

"What is it Red?" he called out while he dusted himself off before he went looking after her. Although the animal inside him urged him to run for his mate, he knew Faith wouldn't appreciate the white stains of marble dust all over the lair that was their home. Then a shockwave of panic surged down the bond and he ran out forgetting all about the dust.

He found his mate in the chair she usually used when she was trying to make predictions. But now her hands were clawed around the armrests and her face frozen. He dropped down beside her carefully wrapping his hands around her shoulders, trying to ease her out of her stiff position. "Is it a vision?"

"They're dying. All of them," she said blankly.

She was still captured by the vision Vaughn realized and kissed her hard on the mouth. That always drew her attention out. It did now too, only it didn't bring relief.

Only when Faith realized her mate was close, she allowed herself to give in to the horror of the vision she'd just had.

The sound that tore from her throat was half sob, half scream and it froze Vaughn's blood. "Who is dying?"

Her mouth opened, lips trembling but she didn't seem to be able to speak the terror that contorted her beautiful face with sheer panic. Vaughn enclosed her into his arms as tight as possible trying to reassure her, to stabilize her through the mating bond. It usually worked even with the darkest visions.

"Red, please talk to me! What did you see? Maybe we can help. You can help them. Remember?"

The vision had been short, but crystal clear and it had knocked all hope right out of her. "No one can help us. Not now."

"Faith, who is dying?" he tried again.

"Psy." Another heart breaking sob. "All Psy. Soon."


	42. Chapter 42

**Chapter 42**

The conference room in the Krychek HQ was once more occupied by the security committee plus various high ranking executives in the Krychek business empire. After the attack Kaleb had called in a meeting even though it was well past midnight by now. Alja stood silently behind Kaleb as he spoke to them. They had agreed it was the best way to ensure they were physically close but didn't raise any suspicions. She had to seem like a tool, a silent weapon of the ruthless Councilor. So for the first time since she worked for him she wore a standard black uniform with the badge of a single silver star, Kaleb's emblem.

"There has been a direct attack on my person by three other Councilors during a sensitive operation on which I was accompanied by Ms. Dardo." Kaleb started the meeting without further greetings. "As you can see it was highly ineffective just as it was expected. Such an escalation was – as I am sure all of you realize – predictable and inevitable." And even if some of them hadn't realized, no one would admit to the slightest surprise after his statement. And no one did.

No one even raised a question, when he announced, that Alja was to be with him at all times now. It just cemented the speculations everyone who'd met her had had since the day she'd arrived: she was an Arrow, an assassin even the most powerful Psy didn't mess with. And when he'd confirmed it openly everyone seemed very busy with not reacting at all.

But Alja caught a silent kind of tension in the room that had not been there during previous meetings. At first she feared their disguise wasn't as well planned as they'd thought. Reaching out with her empathy she felt the same ice around Kaleb she'd always felt before. He had pulled up his own strange shields again. And now she recognized them for what they were: Emotional blocks, something she'd seen often enough in her life. All Arrows had them too. Kaleb's version just looked a little different, felt even colder. She hated it.

But testing the environment with her empathy she noted something else: The members of the security team were very focused but did not seem as tense as the administrative employees.

_Kaleb do any of them act different than usual?_

_No they're just as professional as ever. Do you think differently?_

And the truth hit her with sickening force: The war was here now. Not some distant possibility of the future one needed to prepare for. Not something that happened across the ocean involving people the local Psy cared even less for than for their own. It was here right now. And no Protocol in the world would keep the Psy calm in the face of devastation.

_They're scared underneath. _She whispered to Kaleb. _And I am starting to sense it. Silence will not hold this. _

The cutting ice of fear gripped her insides so hard she wanted to curl up and hide in Kaleb's arms.

_Too late._ She'd be too late. She wouldn't find a way before that fear turned to violent desperation. And even if she felt better than ever after connecting with Kaleb on a level she'd have thought impossible mere hours ago, the thing between them was as fragile as it was beautiful. And it wouldn't save her people, it wouldn't help her to fill the darkness of the Net with the shimmering light that were her powers. Because even as it gave her more time, the Net was running out of it.

_Ok. I'll try to calm them. _Obviously keeping them in check with power play was no longer enough. At the next possibility he changed the subject towards their war preparations again. "There is no need for concern so far. We are deep in the territory that is exclusively controlled by my Council seat. The people in this sector are safe, as well as their business interests. If any of you or our business associates perceives extra personal protection or security for their facilities necessary, talk to Delenko." Turning towards the security chief he added: "Make sure the Siberian units are ready on call and distribute them wherever they're needed." Showing he had enough resources to offer individual protection for the locals, should do the trick of calming any material and emotional concerns.

Alja wasn't sure if Kaleb's words helped, the sensation of emotional tension was yet too frail to make out subtle changes. But she realized more than one person would have liked to ask some more on the subject. No one dared, except for her colleagues in the security committee. But they stayed absolutely focused on the strategic aspects. And as the meeting went on Alja understood why all of Kaleb's security team were also built physically resistant. They were more than security administrators. They were soldiers. Kaleb's so called 'security branch' was just another term for armed forces, considerable armed forces. That was probably also the reason they didn't react with the same almost-emotional tension she'd sensed in the others, and also why they'd worked so well with her from the start. All members of her team were used to the thought of war, of violence.

Her thoughts were interrupted, when she felt a shadow brush by her in the Net. But this one didn't upset her. She knew it well. She let part of her conscience slip out on the mental plane and reached out brushing the other mind back – a familiar greeting.

_Aden what is it? _She asked.

_You need to ask? I am checking up on you. We haven't heard from you in a long time._ Her fellow Arrow answered.

Yes, she should have known he'd make sure she was alright. Because Aden cared. Not on a level that would show in his conditioning in any way. But somehow she'd always known. It was what had bound them together since they first met in the Arrow's training facilities. _I didn't know I was supposed to report back to the Squad._ For some reason Alja realized she felt compelled to act defensively.

_You're not; as long as you're safe in your position. But you have been acting incomprehensible during the last few weeks. _He was referring to her public appearance at the ball. And of course he knew she'd had Vasic teleport her outfit in. _And now you were involved in violent action between four Councilors. That raises questions…_

She should've considered earlier how her behavior might look to the Squad, Alja thought. For the first time it occurred to her that she had maneuvered herself into a position that brought more than a conflict with the law of Silence. It might lead to a conflict of loyalty too. A deadly one. Aden was her fellow Arrow. She wouldn't lie to him. But what had happened between her and Kaleb was not her secret alone. So she chose an evasive answer. _I am alright. Kaleb got me out._

_That means you were the target. It's what we thought. _

We_ meaning you and Vasic. _

_Of course. No one else knows how important you are to the Net. Your secrets are safe with us. But we are not sure if you're still safe with Krychek_.

_I told you he got me out. He sticks to the arrangement we made. Don't you trust him? _

_We trust him as far as we think our political goals align. Any trust beyond that would be plain stupid. _

_Yes, it's logical from your position. _

_Is your position different from ours? _He was asking if her loyalty for the Squad still held. He knew enough of her to anticipate that one day she couldn't hold on to the Squad no matter how strong her bond to the military unit. She was the ultimate antagonist of the very thing the Arrows had been created to protect.

_You know it always was. But that's not my point. _She paused, considering how much to reveal to a man she'd trusted almost all her life, a man she'd grown up with under the same harsh conditions. A bond that wouldn't break even with the new chaotic ties she was forming with to Kaleb. But it was strained._ Aden, I won't betray the Squad ever. But I am forming different loyalties as well._

_And you are sure Kaleb is worthy of such loyalties? _

_You think I am misled by my emotion. _She didn't begrudge him for his doubts. They knew each other since childhood, had always looked out for each other.

_Only you can know that. I'm just asking you to be careful. That part of your personality is a vulnerability._

_You also said that when you put me in his service._ She acknowledged his care for her but also reminded him, that it wasn't her fault alone where she stood right now.

_I remember. And I take responsibility for our course of action. The Squad will always have your back. Whatever happens with Krychek, one word from you and we'll get you out. _

Alja could sense Aden's concern when he spoke. It was a weak, fragile ripple of emotion. But it was there. Maybe it was due to the fact that she had lifted some of the blocks on her empathic abilities. Or maybe Aden didn't hide it as well as usual. Maybe the unofficial leader of the Arrows was even less submerged in Silence as she had already guessed. You couldn't inspire such unflinching loyalty among your kind if you didn't care on some level.

_Thank you._ She said simply then she took a moment to concentrate on the physical world where Kaleb was just closing the meeting. But she'd have time for a few more words with Aden. _There's something I want to warn you about too. When I was talking to Vasic I realized that he seems no longer as stable as he used to be._

_I am monitoring the process._

It was a professional answer but he seemed a little hesitant. Alja wasn't sure what that meant. He had to know that _monitoring_ wouldn't be enough in the long run. He and Vasic had always had a special connection that even her empathy couldn't figure out fully. Maybe Aden didn't want to see the truth.

_Aden, he's going over the edge. He doesn't allow himself to feel but if he would there'd be only hopelessness and resignation. He's not gonna make it when Silence falls._

_There's nothing to be done about it. _

_If you believed that you'd have him sent to the dinarides by now._

_Can you help him? _

_Don't you think I tried? He wouldn't let me._ He'd been even more stubborn than Kaleb about it. Then again she clearly didn't have the same effect on him as she did on Kaleb. But maybe that was the point… _Have you?._

_What do you mean? I don't have your abilities. _

_But you have a connection to him that is different. And empathy is not only a designation. _Then she mentally bit her tongue. She was beginning to allow herself too much openness with the topic of emotion. _I apologize. I'm probably going too far. Just remember what I said. He's giving up. Don't let him._

* * *

Kaleb managed to stay icily focused until he was sure his staff would function on an optimal level under the new conditions of an open conflict. Then he quickly dismissed all of them. As they were exiting the room he telepathed to Alja: _I need to be alone with you._

His mental voice sounded icy but Alja also sensed a kind of heat and a slight emotional pressure that seemed to be transmitted via a different channel of communication she couldn't yet fully perceive. She slowly walked to the door and closed it, when the last of the staff had gotten out, keeping up her perfect façade until the moment the lock of the door clicked shut. Then she turned around to find herself crushed to the back of the door, Kaleb's hands cupping her face, his lips coming down deliciously hard on her own. His kiss was rough, wild and demanding. Her soldier training screamed to stop and be careful with this kind of emotional outburst in the middle of a Psy controlled area. Desire however was stronger and she opened up with a small sigh letting his dark, thunderstorm scent wash over her.

Moments later her shirt had been pulled from her pants and warm hands slipped under it, to burn on her skin. She thrust her hands into his hair pulling him close to kiss him even harder. Only now she began to understand how hungry she had been for him ever since she met him.

_Knock knock knock. _

They both froze in an instant.

_A minute._ Kaleb responded mentally, his tone calm enough it wouldn't sound suspicious.

_It's Silver. She wouldn't disturb in person if it wasn't important. _He added towards Alja, who had already slipped out of his embrace increasing the physical distance between them.

Seconds later Kaleb sat in his place at the conference table again, Alja a statue standing behind him. Their clothes and hair straightened to perfection once more. But it had been close, too close. They couldn't afford to behave like two hormone driven teenagers. Alja wouldn't like it, but he'd probably have to keep using a lot of the Silence Protocol strategies to keep himself in check. And not for the first time he marveled at Alja's ability to conceal her emotion so perfectly without Silence.

"Sir. I apologize for the disturbance." Silver announced when she entered the room again. "But I need to make a request that can no longer be delayed."

Alja sensed that she seemed a little wary. Was that suspicion? Had they already gone too far, betrayed themselves? Kaleb stayed perfectly still. Only an inclination of his head signaled Silver to go on.

But she glanced at Alja –betraying a hint of insecurity.

"There is nothing you cannot say with Miss Dardo present."

Kaleb's voice was a blade of ice, just as always.

"The changes in the political situation cause some difficulties for the members of my family who associated with Pure Psy." _To feed you information_ were the unspoken words. "The ice is getting thin for them."

"How thin?"

"They can no longer stay connected to Pure Psy _and_ our family, since we are visibly connected to you. One of them could leave within the next days. The other – my sister Amber – she's too far up into their structure. They will not accept a return to the family group at this point. She is the one who provided you the mental signature you requested." There was no question the woman was dead if someone ever found out she'd been a double agent for Kaleb.

Alja couldn't sense any real emotion from Silver, no matter how hard she tried. But she was convinced she'd heard the tiniest pause before she added the fact that the woman was directly related to her, a fact that was unnecessary to reveal by Psy-standards. And once again she was aware of the effect of what she called underlying emotions. They were still strong with even the coldest of her race. In Silvers case it seemed to be very strong familial bonds. If she ever broke Silence the death of her sister would devastate her. _Kaleb we need to go in now. The Mercants more than deserve your help. They did this for you. _

_They did, _and he might still need the connection in the long run, _but I won't endanger you._

_Oh shit here we go. _Alja thought annoyed. For some reason she'd almost expected that kind of reaction from him. And it pushed all her buttons. _Are you questioning my competence? _She answered before she could stop herself.

_I'm just saying we need to calculate this with care. I am unused to handle emotions interfering with my view of facts. _It was the most diplomatic way to put it. In truth he wanted to put Alja somewhere safe and never let her out again.

_Well I am. I may not have been born to be a soldier, but I have been one for all my life. I know how emotions may affect your judgement. And I can work around it. I need you to trust me on this._

_I'll try but we need to have this discussion in private. _Silver was waiting for his response quietly, but there was no way she hadn't noticed, they were having a private, mental conversation. And she'd wonder why Alja seemed to be let in on whatever Silver had to say, while his personal assistant was obviously kept out. They had to be even more careful than he'd anticipated. One slip might have fatal consequences. "Do you know her current location?" he finally asked, trying not to seem too distracted by the mental conversation with Alja.

"Not exactly no. But she is likely to be with or near that individual she took the signature from."

"Then it's possible to find her and get her out. But we'll need to plan an operation. I'll see what I can do."

"Thank you."

Kaleb's assistant already turned around, having clearly been dismissed, when Alja spoke. "Do you have a way to keep her hidden for a while? An organization like Pure Psy will probably try to recover her."

Silver blinked twice. It was the only indication she was surprised at hearing Alja speak for herself. Only when Kaleb nodded in consent she answered: "I'll talk to the head of our family. She'll arrange something."


	43. Chapter 43

**Chapter 43**

When Silver had left, Alja expected Kaleb to seek physical contact again. She could feel his need as clearly as her own, but somehow he restrained himself and just stood up giving her a measuring glance. She could almost taste the tension that hung in the air. Then she understood. "You don't want me inside the Net on that kind of mission, because it might be dangerous," she stated matter-of-factly. When he didn't deny it she went on. "But you know me well enough by now. You know I won't accept to be restrained for protection."

"I cannot have this conversation here. Allow a teleport. I promise you won't be restrained in any way." Kaleb sounded outwardly calm but inside him logic and protectiveness fought a brutal war. It helped that Alja still trusted him enough to open her shields for the teleport.

"Where are we?" she asked once they'd arrived in another smaller, but no less psyishly practical office room. It was one Alja had never seen before and the extent of vegetation she could see through the window told her they were no longer in a building within the city.

"My home."

_Oh._ Somehow that answer made Alja little less annoyed with his reluctance to take her into the Net. That he'd let her into another very private location, reminded her how much had changed between them, how hard emotions must be crashing in on his mind that was not nearly as equipped to handle them as she was. And she was barely coping. Could she really blame him for being a little overprotective? Especially when she felt exactly the same towards him?

"So what's your opinion Arrow?" he asked, his tone practical but not cold.

Alja raised her eyebrows in amusement at the address. He was trying hard to keep the conversation light but both of them knew the balance of their very knew relationship depended on the outcome of this conversation, as well as both their chances to successfully help the Psy to survive. How far could they acknowledge their emotions and still function as the Psy they needed to be to change the Net? She wanted to touch him, show him she was just as torn as he was, but she kept her distance. They both needed time to get their brains functioning under the impact of physical sensations and now was not the time to train that. "We should retrieve the woman and take out Vasquez right now," she stated coolly, acting as the Arrow he'd called her. "Pure Psy is not getting weaker if we postpone it any longer and if it's really Ming behind them now, we get built-in retaliation for the attack today."

Considering taking her into the danger of an in-Net mission went completely against Kaleb's protective instincts, but had to admit Alja was right. Seen rationally it was a perfect strategy. One he would have come up with himself, had he not the impulsive urge to keep her out of harm's way.

He took her in standing in front of him waiting for an answer in her perfect uniform, her stance that of a heavily trained soldier. And in the end it wasn't logic that made him decide for her suggestion. It was the fact that he knew it wouldn't work if he refused her now. He couldn't cage her to protect her and he wouldn't devalue her skills by not using them to fight for a future where she didn't need protection. Maybe some danger was inevitable on the way to that future. But he'd bargain hard to keep her out of anything that didn't involve the unique shielding skills only she would provide. "Alright. I'll take you within both our shields and mobile firewalls. And I'll take your consciousness back to your stationary mind before I take any action."

"Ok." A single focused word.

"No objection?" He'd expected her to at least argue, that he would be faster if she made her way back alone or have some part in finding the Mercant woman they were to get out.

"No." When Kaleb didn't react, as if he waited for her to elaborate, she reluctantly explained: "I suppose we'll have to dive into remote locations in the Net. And I'm not used to going out that far."

"What? I thought Arrows were roaming through the Net in disguise all the time. And you can turn yourself effectively invisible." It made no sense for the Squad not to use that advantage.

"If something happened to my body while I was in and I dropped out I'd never know exactly where I relink. I might never find my star again. I only take the risk if it's necessary."

Logical, still Kaleb had never thought of it. This was the second time he was surprised by how fragile Alja was in certain areas that didn't even occur as a source of danger to him. But being neither able to relocate her stationary mind at will, nor able to leave it far behind were alarming disadvantages. And then again she was almost invincible in other areas like her impenetrable shields or her ability to incite feelings in even the most Silent Psy, while hiding her own emotions under the scrutiny of the Arrow Squad for a lifetime. She still was a mystery to unravel. But all he said was: "Then I'd better watch out for you."

Alja slowly let out the breath she hadn't noticed she'd held waiting for his answer. He hadn't let her down even after she revealed how precarious the mission could get for her. And she knew they could make it: Caring for each other and being Psy, feeling and being rational enough to stay sane. That blooming hope made her finally close the distance between them, cup his face and press a gentle kiss on his lips. "Thank you. I know this is not easy for you." She'd first felt the fierce protectiveness in him when they were at the cabin. She'd even been a bit scared how it mirrored her own, because it let her know exactly how far he might go to keep her safe. And she was glad he didn't know she'd go just as far for him or he would definitely lock her up after all.

Kaleb felt a little scared as well – of how Alja could utterly enslave him with the slightest touch and a single kiss. He wanted to be everything she needed, know every facet of her soul and caress every inch of her body until she surrendered herself to be at his mercy as he was at hers. "No it's not. And we will have a very elaborate conversation about what else you can or cannot do in the Net, the moment we have dealt with Vasquez and retrieved Amber Mercant – or maybe not right after, maybe after I have taken care of these distracting physical impulses."

The words sounded almost harsh, Psy. But his gaze was a caress all over her body and Alja could tell he was teasing. "I agree. If we want to make this work, we both need to know a lot more about each other. No more secrets – for both of us." She had some questions of her own and she wouldn't accept platitudes for answers. "Or I might not be willing to participate in the releasing of your physical tensions," she added, letting her smile fill with mischief once again.

He wrapped one hand around her nape, gently, but blatantly proprietary. "Oh yes you will!" And then he smiled.

A real, unadulterated smile – a little wicked and a little arrogant; as if he knew exactly how it would affect Alja: It knocked the breath out of her and instantly made new heat flare up right between her thighs. How could anyone be so devastatingly gorgeous? "Yeah, probably." And she didn't even care, that she'd fallen for him so completely. "Shall we start?" she added quickly, before one of them changed their mind and decided to take care of 'their impulses' first.

Then she slipped out on the mental plane where Kaleb's consciousness was waiting for her, having sped through the Net fast enough and in a very special disguise to shake off any possible trackers. On the way he'd made sure to incapacitate the Pure Psy agent whose mental signature they were stealing to get behind their lines. He was easy enough to find with a complete signature of his mind. And his mind conveniently held a set of locations in the Net where they'd probably find Vasquez as well as some impressions of the Pure Psy general's mental appearance that wasn't good enough to find him in the Net but would suffice to recognize him. "One more thing: will Ming know you were involved, when we use your shielding skills?"

"No, he doesn't know about that aspect. But even if he did, it can hardly make him want me dead any harder than he already does."

"That's not why I'm asking. We don't necessarily have to let him know it was us. There's no advantage in letting him know what we're capable of."

"But who else should it be? You're not going to blame it on an innocent?" Whoever it was would die a quick and very painful death, if Ming suspected him.

"No, believe me the one I'm thinking of can take it quite well."

To her surprise Kaleb smiled again. But this time it puzzled her. "And you're not going to enlighten me, who this mystery person is?"

"Trust me I'll tell you – after. No more secrets!" It was a promise.

And it was enough.

Alja slid inside his shields along the biofeedback link and let the mimicry reflect outside both their minds. It was as easy as breathing. And this time it felt absolutely, utterly right to be this close to Kaleb in the Net, as if they belonged that way. She could feel him, his darkness, his energy and even a faint shadow of his emotions pulsing through the link she'd created to him. It reminded her once more that so much had changed, that so much more was at stake now. But it also made her feel safe even as he swept through the Net with a breathtaking stealth and speed.

On the few occasions Alja had been out in the Net with fellow Arrows she had never experienced something remotely close to the way Kaleb's mind slid through streams of data dodging other minds at high velocity. And then he seemed to be moving completely independent of the glittering data streams it was as if he held on to connections she couldn't see.

* * *

When they came close to the areas Pure Psy used as their basis, Kaleb slowed down but slipped into their mental rooms with the confidence of someone who was supposed to be there. The appearance of the agent Ms. Mercant had provided opened all the doors and let them walk past every security Pure Psy had installed. No one even looked at it twice. It filled him with a fierce pride, that Alja could fool them so perfectly. An irrational thought he would've forbidden himself not long ago. Now it felt good. And he relished the new emotion.

When they finally found Vasquez, it was almost too easy. The general addressed them of his own accord, requesting some report about Pure Psy military training camps. Alja answered evasive and promised to have it as soon as possible. The interaction gave Kaleb enough time to memorize Vasquez' mental signature well enough that he'd find him whenever he wanted. They walked out of the mental vaults of the paramilitary organization as boldly as they'd entered.

Kaleb teleported out the moment they'd both returned to the physical plane. It took him less than five minutes to get back.

This time it was Alja who sought physical contact before he could even speak. She hadn't expected it, but she'd actually worried for him. She had tried to sit down in the chair at his desk only to jump up and take to pacing up and down in front of it ten seconds later. It had only been a few minutes but knowing Kaleb could've gone to the other end of the world, out of her reach forever after she only just got him had made her wary. She needed to feel him now so she wrapped her arms around him, pressing her ear to his chest so she could hear his heartbeat steady and calming. He however stiffened in her embrace. She drew back her head at once searching his face. "Everything ok?"

"Yes. We were right: Ming's running Pure Psy now," he answered monotonously.

"What about Amber Mercant?"

Of course Alja would want to know about the life saved before the life taken. "She's at the HQ in Moscow until her family can take of her safety."

"Good," she stated a little surprised that Kaleb seemed reluctant to elaborate on any of it. Then she understood – at least she thought so. "I'm making it hard for you to think rational. Sorry!" But when she let go and tried to step back he caught her arms.

"No stay! – If you want to."

"What? Why shouldn't I?"

"I just killed a man. Doesn't that repel you?"

"We're at war. And in war people kill." She'd grown up with that knowledge, been trained to accept it as a fact of their world. "Is it harder for you now?" Once Psy started to feel, they couldn't chose _what_ they felt, and that meant their conscience probably awoke too, when they broke Silence.

"Not as much as it should be." He hadn't known what to expect now that he allowed himself emotion, but the only difference when he dealt the deathblow was that he thought of Alja; of how she'd judge his actions and also of the necessity to protect her. "I'm not going to turn good just because I feel, Alja. I'm never going to be like you."

Wow that good and evil thing really ran deep inside him, Alja thought. But she would not let him go there again. "Being able to kill without breaking mentally doesn't make you bad or evil. It just makes you another thing the Net needs."

He pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead. "The Net needs a healer. It needs you." It had shattered his world to realize that. But there was no hiding from it. The path he'd chosen and pursued for so long, it wasn't the one that would save his people. Even cutting the infectious rot from the Net was only playing for time. And he was losing more often than not.

"Yes, but I cannot be a healer if I have to be a soldier at the same time. It's too much of a contradiction." And if she ever wanted to find a way to unfold the potential of her healing abilities, Kaleb was her best shot. She only understood that now. "I want to nurture life, protect life and heal whatever it is that makes us sick. But to enable healing sometimes life needs to be taken, sometimes things need to be destroyed first. And I can't do that. I'm just not made that way. But you are. You can do it. That's why you're important, not only to me but to the whole Net." Cupping his face in her hands so she could gaze into the depth of the night-sky in his eyes once more she took a deep breath and added. "I don't envy you for having to bear such a burden. But I love you even more for doing it."

Kaleb felt Alja's words tear his heart to pieces and form it anew. He wanted to respond, but his voice had stopped working. It was as if she'd heard the silent thoughts he'd once directed at her: _I want you to love a monster._

This woman had been dangerous enough when he only knew her as a mysterious Arrow, but now she sliced his soul wide open with the sheer gentleness she sometimes allowed to show through. And no matter what ugliness she found, she still saw something to value. Once again she surprised him with her unique view of the world: In her world even monsters had their rightful place. That part of him he'd wished he could get rid of for so long, in her world it might be needed.

Suddenly he couldn't have her close enough. He needed to really feel that life, that affection, to experience the wonder she was to him on every level. So he crushed her close, devouring her mouth with greedy kisses and letting his hands wander over her body.

Alja sensed the moment Kaleb opened up again. He didn't need to say it. With every touch, every kiss she felt so loved it almost hurt. She let herself indulge until it made her head spin but she hadn't forgotten that she'd claimed the lead on working around the emotions that were flooding into their logical abilities. So she gently pushed at his chest, when he gave her no other way to break the kiss, and forced out some breathless words. "Stop! Concentrate! We have no time for this now."

Reluctantly he obeyed knowing she was right. They had a war to fight and a Net to save. But he couldn't resist trying to pull her onto his lap when he sat down in his office chair.

She refused to come and sat on the desk facing him instead. "What else did you learn? What are they up to?"

He drew closer, placed his hand on her thigh. She responded by covering it with her own allowing the contact they both had started to need so quickly.

"Almost all of their resources are directed into undermining the Rehabilitation Centers. It's not what I expected but it makes sense. The majority of the people working there are already more prone to be pro Silence since their jobs depend on it, so it won't take much work to gain control of the Centers. And if they have that, they effectively control Silence."

Alja's stomach dropped. In her mind the scenario already unfolded in vibrant colors: People vanishing off the streets. Political opponents silently sentenced to rehabilitation without even the former Council's doubtful jurisdiction. "At the current state that would mean mass-rehabilitations."

"You think Ming – or any of the other Councilors – would stop at something like that? Silence is the base of their power." And power meant everything to them. Just as it had to him not so long ago.

"I know. I just didn't expect that either. I'd have thought they were planning something more military." Something more apt to the Arrow Ming had once been. But she should have known better. Ming wasn't called a master strategist for nothing. He wouldn't just try to replace the Arrows he'd lost with a decimated army that was by far not as well trained. "But of course our wars will always be fought on the psychic plane. – At least partly." No one knew for sure, since the Psy never had had an open war before, just hidden power-plays. So it made sense that part of this escalation would take place in their minds. "But we can't let them control the Centers Kaleb. They'll start a witch hunt for those who struggle with Silence. They'll be after everyone who even considers..."

"…they'll be after people like us," he finished her sentence, his gaze suddenly intense. And somehow that intensity made her a little uneasy. "I won't let them. I already know the identities of the highest ranking Pure Psy operatives. With that knowledge I can get the name of every single Center employee they turned or recruited. They'll be gone before they can do any major damage."

"You do realize you don't have to kill them, don't you?" she asked sternly. She knew her uneasiness came from the knowledge, that Kaleb wouldn't hesitate until every name he'd found was put on a gravestone.

"It would be the easiest way." But would it be the right way? Kaleb wouldn't have asked himself that some time ago. But now he had to, because Alja would. Alja cared for every life, even if it belonged to someone bad.

"Our people are lost, desperate. Not everyone who sets his hopes in an organization like Pure Psy deserves to die. And when Silence falls Pure Psy will lose a lot of its appeal. Those who are trailing at their fringes now will turn from them."

"What do you suggest?" Kaleb asked.

Alja straightened on Kaleb's lap as if she was standing to attention and giving a report. And somehow he found that very cute in that situation. But obviously it seemed to help her focus. Her words suddenly reflected her soldier-mind once more.

"We're Psy, we fight on the mental plane. But there still are physical aspects of this war. The former Councilors control certain physical areas and organizational structures. And since the Council split there's no common jurisdiction. Every Councilor can use whatever resources he owns without consensus of the whole Council." Shoshanna had proven that, when she had started her pro Silence Propaganda. She still held most of the Council's media. "As far as I know it's almost all of Asia and Eastern Europe in your case. And you have the Arrows."

Kaleb was stunned. Her way of thinking betrayed that she had learned a lot more than she'd like to admit from the man she had always feared. Kaleb had been aiming to gain power and overthrow the Council. He had amassed a vast amount of business assets and created an army to enforce that goal on the physical plane as well. But Alja's strategizing resembled far more a mind that was used to war in all his aspects.

"So at least in your territory you could simply fire everyone you suspect working for Pure Psy. I doubt that a lot of the scientists and physicians working there have the potential to turn into mercenaries. They'll lose their value for Pure Psy with their jobs at the Centers, but maybe we can reinstate them later."

"Later?"

"Yes, Silence will fall and it will leave chaos and insecurity. The professionals from the Centers know a lot about stabilizing the Net."

Alja wasn't only trying to randomly protect life. She was also planning on building a future for their people. She amazed Kaleb more and more with every minute. No longer bothering to keep his distance he pulled her close again. He just had to hold her. "But you will stabilize the Net. You will heal it."

It stung Alja's heart how hard Kaleb clung to that hope. She almost wished she hadn't told him, because she was by far not as certain she could make it. She wanted to tell him to prepare for the fall of Silence without her magical abilities saving the day. But he wouldn't understand. He hadn't sought for a solution for so long. Hadn't seen her powers dissipate within the Net as if they simply weren't made to travel through that cold, unwelcoming universe. He wasn't ready to give up hope, not now. Distraught she realized not for the first time that there was a part of her that had done exactly that: given up. A part of her no longer believed the miracle of her powers would ever unfold the way the neosentience had shown to her. She would help her people as far as she could. But in the end, she feared they'd be on their own. "A lot of people will have trouble adjusting. I can't help them all. I think the Center staff will be needed."

"I'll only eliminate the high class agents then. That should slow them down enough." He spoke the words with his lips on her forehead. He couldn't have said for his life whether he was making this decision because he agreed with her logic or just because she wished it.

Alja didn't argue any further. She knew some deaths were necessary – at least the world they were living in now left them no choice if they wanted any of their race to survive. This situation was proof of what she'd said to him a few minutes ago: to enable healing s_ometimes life needs to be taken_. So she just nodded and then kissed him. Long and slow and tender, conveying all that fragile hope that they could really make it… if they managed to focus long enough. "So they aren't planning anything physical?" she finally asked, pulling away and trying to get back on topic.

"They are. A very small section – I suspect it's only one or two black op teams – are being trained in very specialized forms of mental and physical combat – similar to Arrows. But Ming was very careful. Vasquez didn't know what they're supposed to do."

"Could be he's only replacing us Arrows as a backup… Or he's planning something much worse." Alja's soldier mind already started strategizing again when she felt Kaleb's attention shift for a moment. Something must have alerted him on the mental plane. Of course he would be constantly occupied after the hostile action and the ripples it had caused. He confirmed it with his next words.

"It seems we won't get time for our talk anytime soon," he stated. The way he looked at her made clear it wasn't only the talking he'd be sorry to miss.

"I already figured you'll have a lot to do now," she said, playing with his fingers in hers.

"Yes, but this was actually for you. Delenko has had several requests concerning your shield counseling. It seems a lot of people are concerned you won't be there for them now that I claimed you twenty-four-seven." The fact that they had worried about it more or less right after the meeting showed him how right Alja was about the underlying insecurity and fear that the threat of war caused even in the Silent.

"Hmm I didn't think about that before… didn't think they'd already rely on me so much."

"Of course they do. They might trust me to take care of our mutual interests but it's _you_ who gives them a sense of personal safety." While he said it he felt a new shade of emotion well up inside. It was a warm, fierce thing that told him how much he valued Alja even beyond the raw passion and possessiveness at the base of his heart. That was the moment her learned to feel proud of her. "As much as I'd like to have you for myself, you probably should continue the counseling for a few hours a day. It might stabilize the ones who are starting to show signs of fear as you said."

Alja would have liked to tell him then how good a leader he was, taking care of his people like this. But she knew he'd have argued it away with logic and necessity again, so she only agreed with a nod and lifted his hand to her mouth to place a kiss on his knuckles in open affection. It was enough that she'd glimpsed him again; that man he could be, if he dared to fully shed that armor of hardness. A man with honor, sense of responsibility and above all love for the ones in his care.


	44. Chapter 44

**Chapter 44**

On the other side of the planet a woman awoke in a comfortable hospital bed in the infirmary of the SnowDancer den. It didn't take her as long as it once had to orientate herself. And she could already move her body into an upright sitting position. She remembered bits and pieces from her past; enough to understand her position in time and space. She had learned she was under the care of a wolf changeling pack in California. And she knew that the world had changed since the time she'd once lived. She had been in cryogenic suspension for hundred years. And she started to understand the whole weight of that fact. Everyone she'd once known was gone. Even though she struggled to remember who that had been, there were splinters of memory. Her parents, friends, some Psy she had worked with and then – Zaid. Yes, she remembered Zaid…sometimes.

"She's awake for hours at a time now. And I think she's getting quickly back to her scientist self. She's peppering us with questions about the world of our time whenever she gets hold of any of us." Alice heard the gentle voice of the woman, who usually took care of her approaching. Followed by the one she had identified as an Arrow at once.

"Then she'll like this." Alice couldn't see what the Arrow thought she'd like, because the voices were still out of sight. But she felt excitement rise. Curiosity had always fueled her as a scientist and in every other aspect of her life.

"Are these the files Walker prepared?" The healer woman – Lara – again. And she remembered she had seen the other Psy, Walker as well. But he was no Arrow. He was a teacher and he had talked to her about her time.

"Yes. He just finished them. They should contain all the information in a way her mind can process." That was when they stepped into the room.

Judd – she remembered his name as she saw him – handed her pile of paper files that – according to their titles – contained a collection of information about the contemporary times. It wasn't just text but also pictures and even charts depicting structures and connections, in short everything she would need to understand this new world she'd awoken to. Logically she should've started with the information about the changelings who currently were her hosts. But somehow a very old interest was stronger and she opened a file on the Psy political system first.

* * *

Judd and Lara only stayed long enough to make sure Alice knew how to handle the files. Which she had no problem with of course. Dealing with all kinds of data sources had been her life before. It was an ability she obviously hadn't lost even in a hundred years of being frozen. But just when they'd reached the other room Lara heard Alice's voice whisper.

"Those eyes..." she repeated after the healer had hurried back into the room. To Lara's surprise her fingers gently traced the lines of the face on the page she'd opened. It was Kaleb Krychek's photo.

"He's a cardinal. You remember cardinal Psy don't you?" Could it be she had forgotten about their strange black eyes full of stars? No, she had seen Sascha before.

"No… those _eyes_…" Her mind seemed to slip away into a different time once again. But then she suddenly asked: "Is that a descendant of the Adelaja family?"

"No, that's Councilor Krychek. The description to the picture is on the next page. Here." Lara reached over to turn the page.

"_Councilor _Krychek," Alice repeated with disbelief in her voice. "So they finally succeeded... But why Zaid? … No, he wouldn't have let them put me in a box…"

Lara could hear her patients heartbeat accelerate, smell excitement and shock. She tried to pull away the file from Alice's hands thinking maybe the information had been too much too soon, but the other woman held on tight. She grabbed a pen from the bedside table and started to scratch it across the top of the page seemingly without control.

"Alice, calm down we can continue later…" Lara tried again, sensing the stress response that had caused her to fall back into unconsciousness several times before. But it was too late. The file and pen dropped from Alice's hands and he body went limp against the headboard of her bed.

Judd helped to get Alice to a lying position again, while Lara picked up the file. "Hmm… you know what that means?" she asked when he'd finished his task, holding out the page Alice had written on.

Judd found she hadn't just mindlessly scribbled across the headline. Her hand might've trembled but she had clearly changed only three letters in Kaleb's last name. With her alterations it now read KRYONIK instead of KRYCHEK. He knew at once where he'd seen it before.

"As I remember, there was an emblem that said KRYONIK on the lid of her coffin. But that's just the term used for cryonics – cryogenic preservation – in a couple of other languages. I didn't think much of it at the time."

"It might just be her memory going haywire…" Lara started.

"I'll make sure someone looks into it nonetheless," Judd answered. It seemed like too much of a coincidence, considering who he got the coffin with the suspended scientist from. And Alice had been talking about Zaid before…

A few minutes later he called Dorian, the Leopard's computer specialist. He was sure the Net would be cleansed of any usable information but the internet was harder to control even for the Ghost.


	45. Chapter 45

**Chapter 45**

Alja returned to the physical plane and opened her eyes. The sun had set already. It had been almost a day now since everything had changed between her and Kaleb. And she hadn't even slept since. After Delenko's request they'd returned to the Krychek HQ right away. Now she was still in her office having been busy with shield counseling all day long. The insecurity among Kaleb's staff was obvious from the amount of requests she'd had. But when her last client had left and she hadn't heard from Kaleb, she'd decided to search the Net for a while.

She hadn't been surfing far. Just sweeping through some chatrooms and news pools, interested in how much of last night's events had spread among the populace. Of course it wasn't much. There were only hushed, whispered rumors of the ripples in the Net being caused by a confrontation between the Councilors but no one had bothered to give an official statement yet. Among the other races that might have been surprising. Not among the Psy. They'd been drilled, or –if one was honest – scared into total obedience to the Council. No one even dared to ask for an explanation. Not so soon anyway.

But then she'd stumbled across something striking after all: Pure Psy's spokesman had announced that the organization had been attacked by the infamous rebel everyone knew only as the Ghost. So that was who Kaleb had blamed it on. How had he even known what traces to leave? And just for a moment that made her uneasy. She had seen Kaleb's power, so vast it was blinding. But the Arrows had been charged with hunting the Ghost. So Alja had gotten quite a bit of information on him and she knew the rebel was so volatile and so insidious that probably not even Kaleb would want to make an enemy of him lightly. Still he'd seemed almost casual about it. Oh hell, they really needed to talk.

Just as she thought it, she felt the telepathic knock. Heard Kaleb's mental voice crystal clear the moment she'd answered. _Are you ready to 'port out? Time to go home._

_'__Home'_. It sounded strange. He'd probably just said it out of habit but it made a warm, bubbly feeling spring to life in her stomach. _I'm ready. _

She allowed the teleport and a moment later she found herself in Kaleb's study where they'd been only this morning. But obviously she was alone. She whirled around when she heard something thudding lightly on the floor behind her. Felt a draft of air across her whole body while she moved, registered a pile of black on the carpet.

Something was off.

Before she could even react, Kaleb appeared right in front of her. But immediately took a step back and looked at her with a strange satisfaction in his eyes. Only then she looked down herself and realized what he'd done. She couldn't hold back a startled cry. "You teleported me out of my clothes!" she exclaimed utterly surprised. Of course it was possible: Once she retracted her shields to be teleported, they only protected her body from disintegration. The Tk could reach right up to her skin but not further. She'd never thought it necessary to include her clothing – until now.

"I knew there must be some flexibility in this!" Kaleb stated triumphantly, followed be a low male chuckle. The sound of it stunned Alja for a moment. Added to the light, natural smile that filled his already gorgeous face it made the bubbly feeling inside her grow even stronger and let her forget all about the loop hole in her shield work. Because right now Alja thought she might have glimpsed the boy Kaleb had never been allowed to be. And she was mesmerized by the view of him so at ease.

She felt her heart overflow with warmth as she realized he was playing with her, joking. Whatever she'd been expecting this was not it. But it was thrilling. None of them had ever played before. And suddenly there was so much more to explore, so much more to live for.

Kaleb saw Alja's expression turn to a very mischievous kind of dangerous right before it formed a mask of seriousness that almost matched that of her Arrow persona.

"Do you think this is funny?" Yes, he actually did, he realized. But her voice sounded more like when she acted as a human now. Kaleb just couldn't read her properly. Then suddenly it occurred to him that maybe it hadn't been such a good idea to trick her with the teleport. This was probably no appropriate behavior at all. Then again that was why he'd done it. He didn't have to be the Psy kind of appropriate with her. Or did he? He felt heat rise to his cheeks. A new emotion flickered awake: Embarrassment. _But that would be an illogical emotion, wouldn't it?_ He thought.

Now it was Alja's turn to chuckle.

He understood in an instant. "Wait… You projected?" He stepped towards her, the effect of her projection fading as he detected it. Or maybe she let it.

"You cheat. I cheat." A smile that was pure provocation cracked her face.

"Fair point. But why would you make me feel _this_? Do you not want me to touch you?" He closed the distance between them and lightly ran his hands up from her waist until they just brushed the sides of her breasts. "Like this." To his satisfaction she shuddered and leaned into his touch instantly. He stroked down to her hips with just his fingers, let his thumbs brush over her hipbones. "Or like this?" He deliberately kept his touch light, avoided more sensitive areas. It only made her press herself closer to him. Just as he'd intended. It was one of the first things he'd learned about Alja: She didn't like the light, fleeting touches. Her body immediately demanded more, needed the intense sensations. Probably because she was just as starved as he was. Hell, he was using up a lot of his willpower to keep himself from simply crushing her divine body against his and claim every deliciously soft part of her with his hands and mouth. But somehow he managed, because he wanted to play right now. They might have a few precious hours to themselves and he wanted them both to be able to forget the chaos around them for as long as possible. So he kept his hands at her hips and brushed his thumbs over the silky, sensitive skin below her hipbones again. She gave a little cry of protest, when he didn't let her come closer. Oh yes, he loved that she wanted him close just as badly as he wanted her!

Arrogant man! Alja thought a little frustrated. He was teasing her and pushing her at the same time. Taking whatever he wanted, just as he was used to. And he knew he could. Because, how could she resist, when she wanted nothing more than to give him all he could ask for and probably more. Oh those damned, teasing touches. Electrifying heat rushed from his fingers right down to the juncture of her thighs. Minutes ago she'd longed to talk to him so badly, but now she could only think about how to make him stop teasing and touch her for real. Well, talking could probably wait just a little longer after all. And she had learned one or two things about Kaleb too: If he liked looking at her naked body, he'd get his view…

Instead of clinging closer to him she took a few steps backwards until she felt the cool surface of his desk touch the backs of her thighs. Then with a deep breath she pushed herself up onto it until she could place he feet on the shining surface as well, her legs spread wide. "So what's next boss? You gonna take me on your office desk?" she said in her most provocative human tone.

And that was it. Kaleb couldn't help the low gasping sound that escaped his throat as his jaw dropped of its own volition. When he managed to get his eyes up to Alja's face, he expected her provocative grin again. But she gave him a questioning, almost insecure look, her full lower lip caught between her teeth. And as if that wasn't enough, a faint tint of red rose to her cheeks as if she only just got conscious of how openly sexual her posture was. The view made heat blaze all through his body.

"It's a joke." She smiled a little warily. "Having sex in an office is a human and changeling cliché." But before she could explain any more he was right in front of her, hands placed on the desk right below her knees. Blocking her from taking a less exposed position.

"No, that's not a joke. That's looking for trouble, Arrow!" He almost growled but he put on a very dangerous smile that let her know exactly what kind of trouble he meant.

Maybe they truly weren't so different from the other species after all, Kaleb thought. He'd dreamt this particular fantasy before he even fully broke Silence. He had also half expected that the horrible memory of how it had ended in his nightmare would put a damper on this perfect moment with Alja. But reality left no room for the negative aspects of that dream. He could feel her shields steady and unyielding. The flowing motion rippling just a little stronger than usual.

"Hm, I don't know how I could possibly get in any more trouble than I'm already in," Alja teased on. "Three Councilors are trying to kill me and one obviously thinks he can do wha…mh!" He silenced her with a kiss this time. He obviously needed to work a little harder to keep her thoughts off their situation. Good thing he loved a challenge.

"Mh, yes, good thought. Let's see what else I _can_ do to give you more … trouble," he mumbled against her lips before he laid a trail of sucking, biting kisses down her neck towards her breasts. Her teasing mood turned into a raw sensual hunger within seconds. And she couldn't help the needy little sounds that escaped her as he worked his way further down.

Kaleb could feel Alja's hunger shaking her frame, making her move impatiently under his teasing mouth. He smiled against her skin, then he curved his hands around her hips to hold her in place. It proved necessary as soon as he licked out with his tongue, tracing a little line from her hipbones downwards. He deliberately chose the same spot that had made her react when he' stroked it with his thumbs earlier. And when he continued downwards and let his tongue slip through the silken folds of her he had to dig his fingers into her buttocks hard to keep her from wriggling away from the intensity of pleasure. But her deep moans told him she liked that even better. What he wasn't prepared for was his own reaction. He'd never thought he'd be this aroused just by touching her, tasting her. If he wasn't careful, he'd be done playing soon, intoxicated by her scent and taste.

Little shocks of pleasure rippled through Alja's body as Kaleb devoured her. She wanted to hold him closer to her but couldn't move one of the hands she needed to brace herself on the desk. So she slipped her feet off its surface and over Kaleb's shoulders. To her luck he didn't tease this time. Instead he sucked a little harder at the sensitive little nub between her wet folds. Every single action of his was focused solely on wringing every ounce of pleasure Alja had in her from her body. And just as the sensation built to blinding he let his tongue circle around her entrance, lapping her up with a satisfied "Mhh…" The low guttural sound finally did it: Electricity exploded from the point where Kaleb had put his mouth on her and raced through her body so hard her arms buckled and she dropped backwards barely able to land on her elbows to prop herself up. But just when she thought the pleasure would start to ebb away, he stroked his tongue inside her, making another wave of lightning fire up her nerves and ripping a soft scream from her lungs.

Kaleb was close to the edge himself as Alja went limp against his hands and mouth. He let his lips turn soft, his kisses less demanding as he made his way back up her body. He breathed deep to calm himself down a little and blew his breath softly over Alja's heated skin to ease her down too. He pulled her close and held her up as she slipped off the desk into his arms. Of course he'd been ready to take her on his desk from the moment she'd awoken the image in his mind. But when she gave him a heavy-lidded smile, her eyes glowing with that strange warmth that touched him deep inside, he realized he wanted her in an even more private space. He needed to claim her in his bed, the place where dreams of her had tortured him every night since that first dream.

As soon as her limbs didn't feel like jelly anymore Alja busied herself with unbuttoning Kaleb's shirt. "You're totally overdressed Sir," she teased. Then she saw the raw hunger in the magnificent depths of his eyes. Of course he wouldn't be even as temporarily satisfied as she was right now. Very temporarily she learned the moment his lips touched hers again. Tasting herself on his lips made her own hunger come alive again quickly. So she didn't care as he started to walk them both out of the room and was already unbuckling his belt as he maneuvered her through the door of his study. He half pushed half carried her across an empty hallway and into another almost empty gray room. Then the backs of her knees hit something soft and then she was dropped into a silky dream of midnight blue that felt vaguely familiar. But she couldn't really concentrate because Kaleb's hands and mouth were all over her. So she just gave into sensation, wrapped herself around him, only letting go long enough to help him get rid of his clothing.

It was an easy, playful loving. Everything was new for them. And in a way that made it easier. There was no shame between them. They just explored each other's bodies, learning what they liked in the process. And maybe it helped that they both had the scientific curiosity, that kept even the most Silent of their race motivated.

At some point Alja noticed that Kaleb didn't let go the way he had during their first unexpected union. Somehow he managed to retain some control and that bothered her a little. Maybe it just hurt her pride, that he could make her lose control so easily while she obviously didn't do the same to him. But maybe it went deeper… Then again she knew enough about human relationships that she was not supposed to complain if her lover had enough self-restraint to turn her into an incoherent heap of satisfied woman before he gave into his own pleasure.


	46. Chapter 46

**Chapter 46**

Hawke found Judd in the corridor heading towards his and Brenna's quarters. He didn't want to hold him up again as he had done so many times during the last weeks. But he didn't really have a choice. The man was his best source on anything that went on in the Psy world at the moment, so he had roped him in for a lot of tasks lately. Because they had to know what was going on. Anything related to the Psy tended to bleed over to the other races, especially if it was connected to violence.

"Judd! I need you to come over to the cats with me. Faith has seen something and they'll only discuss it in person. It has to do with the Psy Net."

That could only mean something really big was going on and something probably really dangerous. Judd turned on his heel and followed the alpha. He'd text Brenna on the way. She would be pissed but she'd also understand. And he really liked making up to her. To Hawke he said: "We need to talk with them about Alice Eldridge too."

"Anything new on her strange reaction to the files? Tell me on the way." The corridor they were taking was empty so they could talk freely.

"Dorian found something on that cryo-company named KRYONIK. As I suspected it is connected to Kaleb Krychek, quite directly even: He inherited it from his family group. I haven't given Dorian any more intel when I made him research the company." And Dorian hadn't asked so far. He wouldn't however keep any information connected to a Council member from his own alpha. "But now the leopards will want to know what's going on."

"No problem there," was Hawke's instant response. The alliance between the packs had strengthened over the last years. Their common enemies had tried to divide them but only welded them closer together. "Didn't know there is a Krychek family group though."

"There isn't. But there was. The Krychek business group specialized in biotechnology. The family was comparably weak, financially. But they got a little bigger during the cryo-boom." At the beginning of the new millennium a lot of people had been lured in by the thought of immortality. "The corporation with the name KRYONIK was the branch that offered cryogenic conservation of human and Psy bodies." There was no question changelings would have ever requested such services. They were too attuned to nature. And as hard as it might be at times: Death was a part of life. None of them would ever try to evade that natural law in such a way. "After expanding in that area they got also quite big in other biotechnological products and services. Until the business was closed about fifty years ago. On the surface it seems to have gone down with numerous other companies of the kind, when cryonic suspension was banned." After decades of freezing people no one ever came up with how to successfully unfreeze them. So people had slowly lost faith in the false – and very expensive – promise of cryonics. And in the end it had been made illegal by all governments. "According to what Dorian found so far the only thing that's left today is a trust fund that secures the continuation of the cryonic contracts, in case it's ever possible to bring people back on a larger scale."

They had reached the garage of the den and headed for one of the pack SUVs.

"Why did they stop the whole business, when they still had the other branches?" Hawke asked as he opened the door to the vehicle.

Judd answered entering on the passenger side. "We were wondering the same. There must have been quite a lot of resources left even when cryonics turned unprofitable. But all of those vanished from any accessible data source. The only other thing Dorian found until now is that the family line was slowly dying out. Kaleb is the only successor."

"A Psy family dying out? Don't they reproduce with scientific precision? And if they were into biotech, they should have had it down to perfection."

"That's what I thought too. But then I remembered what my contact told me when he handed me Alice: He said he found her in an experimental chamber of a scientist who had a psychotic breakdown and killed himself and his family, while also destroying his research in the process. I don't know how big the family group was, but if the mental problems ran in the family, that might be another reason they vanished."

"What?!" Hawke had been about to start the engine when the full impact of Judd's explanation hit. "Great! So you're saying it's possible your fucking contact and the most powerful Psy on earth is a descendant of a family of lunatics and he had Alice Eldridge practically in his fridge?" Although Judd had shared the secret of the Ghost's identity with Hawke, he had still stuck to talking about Judd's _contact_. The information was dangerous enough that he hadn't wanted to risk anyone else ever overhearing a conversation that revealed it. Right now he was shocked enough to forget about it for a second.

Judd however stayed calm. He had expected an emotional reaction. That was why he had waited to tell him until they were alone. It wouldn't do good, if the alpha scared his pack mates with his outburst. "We are trying to research that. But Dorian said he already strained the borders of legality getting that information. He wanted to talk to Lucas before he digs any deeper."

"Good thing then, we're talking to them anyway." He finally started the car and drove off towards DarkRiver territory.

"Will you reveal the Ghosts true identity to Lucas?" Judd knew he had given up control over the information, when he told Hawke. His loyalty to the pack had demanded it at some point. And now it was a decision the changeling alpha had to make on his own, if he shared it with the leopards. The impact would be substantial, since once the DarkRiver alpha knew so would Sascha Duncan, who was daughter to one of the Councilors. And there the information would possibly link back to the Net. The outcome would be unpredictable and more than dangerous for everyone involved.

"At this point it is not absolutely necessary. So not yet." He'd have to take the risk that the cats would be really pissed when that point arrived and they found out he'd been holding back information. "Damn Psy and their war. – No offense intended! – But right now this is driving a thorn in our alliance. And that pisses me off. Luc won't appreciate being kept in the dark for his own protection."

"He has a child now. Maybe that changes things."

Hawke snorted. "If you really believe that you still don't know us." But silently he wondered if Judd was right. Until he had mated with Sienna, he had never given a thought to how a child would change a man.


	47. Chapter 47

**Chapter 47**

Alja still couldn't fully believe it when she looked around the room. She was in Kaleb's home, in his bedroom. Her body close to his, wrapped in that wonderful scent of electrified air and darkness, touching a man she'd never expected to be touched by anyone. It all seemed so surreal, she almost missed what else she was touching, more specifically what she was lying on: a silky dream of midnight-blue satin that caressed her skin like the dress she'd worn at the ball. The sheets were made of the exact same fabric.

"When and more importantly where did you get these?" she asked pulling the material up over her bare legs and hips. Not because she was cold but because she liked the extra intimacy it added to her current position. She was lying half beside and half atop Kaleb, who was on his back, one arm behind his head the other wrapped possessively around her waist.

"Four days ago. I had them made by a Spanish firm called _tejido de los ensueños_," he answered truthfully.

A typical Psy answer, but she was sure he was teasing her. She propped her head up on her arms on his chest and looked at him directly. "Ok. Mr. Super-Psy and how did you know where to get the cloth? Stalker much?"

"The name of the fabric and its retailer was in one of the media reports I scanned."

"Why would someone report what my dress was made of?" she asked truly surprised.

Kaleb liked how her face scrunched up in disbelief. It was _cute_. Unused to such emotional terminology he let the word ring through his mind again, decided it was a good one to describe Alja but probably not one her soldier side would appreciate. "They analyze everything. This information came from a changeling fashion blog that was suggested in my internet research." When Alja shook her head laughing he added: "Seriously, how do they get anything done with a network as inefficient and full of superfluous data?"

"Obviously it wasn't so superfluous in your case…" she teased.

"Maybe…" then his voice turned suddenly intense. "I needed something that felt like you. I thought the sheets would be enough, so I could keep away from you."

She met his gaze with the same intensity and felt something pass between them that was beyond words. But they both understood. Then she leaned forward and kissed him with crushing gentleness before she smiled his favorite wicked smile and stated: "So that didn't work out then."

"Obviously not." He pulled her a little closer against his body, as if to emphasize it. "And as for the stalking part: I consider myself a predator and I never made a secret of it." He said it as if that rectified any line crossing behavior.

Alja rolled her eyes at the obvious arrogance in that statement, but she didn't question its truth either.

"Although," he went on, "in your case I couldn't yet decide whether you are prey or a predator yourself."

"Well I guess I'll let you figure that out by yourself," she replied and shifted so she could prop herself up on an elbow beside him and had her other hand free to draw patterns on his naked chest.

Kaleb in return started stroking along the lower edge of her ribs with his fingertips. It had the intended effect of making her chuckle and wriggle away slightly. He didn't let her. Instead he pulled her on top of him and repeated the tickling caress on her other side. She didn't react. He tried again, noticing a small uneven spot on her skin, but she still showed no sign she'd felt the touch. "What's that?"

"Just a scar from training." She sounded casual, but since she'd stopped wiping her emotions off her face, he saw that there was more to it.

"You have no sensibility in the skin below it." Neural damage that shouldn't have lasted. "The Arrows have excellent medics and even Tk-Cells as far as I know. Why was this not treated properly?"

She sat up beside him, pulling the sheet around her chest, suddenly looking a little vulnerable.

"If I tell you about the scar, will you tell me about yours?" When he didn't react at once, she reached out to pull out his arm from under his head, stroked over the strangely shaped burn scar on his forearm.

Kaleb considered it for a moment. Alja looked excited, curious, but never scared of what ugliness he might reveal. It was a hard secret to begin with but not as hard as it could have been. It wasn't one of the truths he hid so deep in his mind that even he only remembered, when he dared to peek into the cage of the monster, into that room that held memories of murder even before the moral decision of a seventeen year old.

Alja felt tendrils of an aching anticipation spread through her stomach as Kaleb hesitated for agonizing seconds. His face turned blank, making her fear he would retract behind those walls of Silence at last. And then, all of a sudden it seemed he couldn't talk fast enough.

"I will, actually I can even start." He had sworn to himself he wouldn't hide anything from her. And even though she had proven over and over that she wouldn't shy away from who he was, there was so much more darkness he had to reveal. So much more risk of losing her to the horror he was at last. He just wanted it over. "You already know about my past with Enrique Santano. Don't you?"

"I know you were his protégé and probably present more than once when he tortured and murdered these changeling women." To be the Council's boogey men the Arrows had to know a lot of dirty secrets and what they weren't told they had ways to find out. And for Alja there was the NetMind of course. "And I suppose killing that swan-changeling, Susannah, wasn't your idea either." Alja deliberately used light words trying to lessen their impact. It was going to be hard enough, if they were trying to talk about that part of their connected pasts.

Kaleb froze nonetheless as she mentioned the name.

"Hey it's ok." Alja cupped his face and pressed her lips on his hard. Anchoring him back to reality. "That's a memory for another time. Just tell me about the scar!"

He pushed himself up to a sitting position too and went on, glad he didn't have to explain everything from the start. "He was very absorbed in his experiments. So most of the time I just had to watch, describe what I saw and clean up. – before that last one at least." Alja didn't like that his voice turned so toneless. But she recognized the technique of distancing himself emotionally. She had done it often enough. "It was when I was twelve or maybe fourteen. I don't remember when exactly." He stated it just as flatly as the other facts but it was a shock nonetheless. Because Kaleb had one of the sharpest minds she'd ever seen. And it said a lot about his time with Enrique that he didn't even remember how old he'd been, when he got a scar that must have hurt like hell. "But back then he didn't use the signature he used later – the 79 cuts. He used a burning iron in the shape of the Greek letter _psi_ to mark the victims with a symbol of Psy superiority." Only later when the changeling and human fractions gained more and more power it had become too risky. The Psy could no longer violate the other races in plain view without fearing the consequences so the murderer had switched to the more subtle marking, which involved even more pain for the victim than the burning. "One day he decided it was time for me to partake in his work. He wanted me to do the brand mark on a bear changeling. He held her down with Tk but of course he let her go the moment I was in her reach with the burning iron. It was just another test. It took me only a second to get her back down with my own Tk, but it was enough to have her swing one partially changed paw at the iron. It swung towards my face and I blocked it with my forearm. Then I broke her arm with Tk."

Alja heard the guilt in the last sentence. Instinct made her shift close to him lean he body against his. His arm came around her at once. "It was not your fault. It was a reflex."

"No it wasn't. I did it so I wouldn't seem weak in front of him." Only the truth. He wouldn't hide.

_Still not your fault_. Alja wanted to answer, but she held the words back. This would only lead to an argument she had no chance to win. It would take a long time for Kaleb to let go of the guilt he had amassed over so many years at the hands of a serial killer. And she knew that sometimes it was easier to blame yourself, easier to accept the guilt than to admit you had been helpless and that a part of you would always be that helpless, frightened creature that would have done anything, no matter how terrible it was, to make the pain and fear go away. Kaleb however surprised her by reading her mind without his telepathy working on her.

"I know what's going on in your head right now. I know what you want to say, what you want me to believe. But where do you draw the line Alja? How much shall I blame one the ones who formed me when I was young and where does my own responsibility for my actions start?"

She had no easy answer to that. "Maybe it's not about guilt or responsibility. Maybe it's about which things you can't change once they're done and for which things you can at least make amends. It's how I hold myself up: By believing one day I will make up for everything I've done."

"I would like to believe that too." But he didn't sound convinced. "So what about those?" He leaned around her and brushed his knuckles across the scar on her right lower ribs that he'd discovered earlier and then on the one on the other side, that almost mirrored its brother. Only it hadn't caused the same insensitivity of the skin around it.

Alja relished the gentle touch and was equally impressed. Both scars were very faded and it spoke for Kaleb's perceptiveness, that he'd found them both so fast. "They're stab-wounds I got during training."

"I heard that young Arrows are hurt by their trainers to harden them. I just never expected that extent." Stab wounds to the chest were a serious matter even with modern medicine.

"We weren't only hurt by our trainers. They also made us hurt each other when we were in senior training. I believe they feared our bonds of loyalty to each other within the training group threatened to get stronger than our commitment to the Squad in general. That one time they locked us up in a large training hall and made us fight. We'd only get food and water if we hurt one of our comrades. If we scored a serious wound on the head or chest we'd be set free. It sounds easy, but with the level of training and psychic skills we possessed it could last for days." That kind of exercise was one of the main reasons for the strange sense of connection between the Arrows. It had formed in them an unflinching loyalty towards anyone who had come through the same hell of training. But at the same time it prevented any personal attachment, which was exactly what their trainers had wanted to achieve. Only it hadn't worked with everyone.

"They actually let you kill each other?" Kaleb asked not hiding his shocked surprise. It meant something that even with his own background, he was impressed by the severity of what Alja had been through.

"Just almost. At that point in our training we were already too valuable. They had a team of medics stand by to patch up the casualties. They'd have to go back in another round later."

"But then the scars should have been treated in a way that they wouldn't be visible today." He saw Alja bite her lip so hard he wanted to kiss her to make her stop hurting herself but this was important, so he let her go on.

"There was a boy I knew from compensatory training. We were the weak ones. We had no chance to score our points while the others were fighting with their psychic combat skills. But we were clever enough to keep out of the line of fire and last for a long time. And I had my shields after all." Now it was Kaleb's turn to be surprised how self-evidently Alja related what must have been one of the worst times of her life. "And then there were just three of us left. The third one was a bit of a surprise. He was a strong Tk and I had expected him to be one of the first to get out. Too late I realized the only reason he was still there was, because he was protecting his friend." Needless to say that something like friendship was absolutely outrageous in their situation. "But they had maneuvered themselves in a trap. Even if one of them would have gotten to me, one of them would still have to hurt the other. And they couldn't. I hadn't shut off the empathic senses so tight back then, so I knew. And it was the first time I felt that someone was like me. They weren't empaths of course, but they weren't like the others either."

Kaleb had an idea who those two might have been. But asking would have put Alja in a conflict of loyalty so he held his tongue about it and just stated the obvious. Not something a Psy would do, but he wanted her to know he understood her. "You felt for them."

There was no reproof in his tone. And it meant a lot to Alja that he wouldn't judge her. "I wanted to help. So I shielded our telepathic conversation and we worked out a solution that would get us all out and leave no one to be sent in again. We would all attack each other simultaneously. I would let them score a chest wound each, while I would hurt them back badly enough to count me as a win as well."

"And that worked?"

"No, they counted us all as failure and made us go in again. But the next time we found victims fast enough to come out separately. We learned from our mistakes."

"And they let you keep the scars as a reminder?"

"Oh no. It wasn't that." She'd almost forgotten about his initial question. And she wasn't too eager to tell him that detail of the story. But maybe it would help him to learn, that he wasn't the only one who had made some grave choices to survive. "The way I hurt the other boys – it was bad. The medics were busy keeping them alive, so my punctured lungs were patched up properly but the skin wounds were just roughly sewn together."

"Punctured lungs?!" He wasn't certain he could ever look Aden or Vasic in the eye again and not kill them for hurting her. Maybe if he could convince himself it hadn't been them after all… "What could you do that was worse?"

He saw the stars in her eyes start to tremble, wished he could take back the question.

"Did you ever wonder what Arrows learn in compensatory training?" Of course he hadn't. Alja had said it just to anchor herself, make sure her voice was still working, because it felt as if it was about to give out. And she was right. She heard her own voice break and knew she couldn't tell him. She had to show him. So she tilted her head to the side and brushed her hair away from the soft strip of skin behind her right ear.

Kaleb was baffled for a second, wondering if she asked for a caress. He already considered pressing a kiss to the delicate skin she had laid open but then he registered a tiny movement under that very skin. Slowly a little spike emerged through a hole in her skin that was so small it didn't even bleed. He didn't fully process what was going on until the glass needle was floating right in front of his eyes

"Now imagine that thing inside your brain." Her voice – forced to work with brutal control – was so cold and cutting no one who'd have heard it would have believed her anything but absolutely submerged in Silence.

Kaleb just stared at her as he began to understand what she was telling him.

"My Tk is too weak to do much damage on its own. But I don't need much strength to get that thing here through an eyeball. And you couldn't stop me even with Tk because of my shields. It is a very unique technique even in the Squad. You might think punctured lungs bad, but the others knew exactly where and how deep to push in the blades to make it count, but still relatively easy to heal. It was me who didn't have a clue how to avoid the vital structures, when I drilled the needles into their brains. They took a much higher risk than me." There she'd admitted it. She hadn't helped her comrades. In the end they had helped her. Although they had to go in again, word of her skills had spread. No one in the Squad ever challenged her or disrespected her for her relatively weak mental combat skills.

Kaleb picked the needle out of the air where it still floated and threw it away. Alja looked after it just to see it crushed to dust and then vanish entirely. He had thrown it just outside her shield range so he could get rid of it with his own abilities. "How many of them are still inside you?" It made him sick to think she had to turn her body into a weapon in such a literal way. It must hurt her more than anything else she'd had to do as an Arrow.

"Enough to go around for a lifetime." Not that she ever intended to use them again. "I was lucky." She stated bitterly. "So far there were only six cases where this special skill was needed." And the one where she had killed using her empathy.

Kaleb pulled her onto his lap, wrapping the sheets of soothing silk tightly around both of them, crushing her to him as close as humanly possible. He needed to hold her safe to still the irrational fear for her he felt at hearing of the horrors of her past. "It really is a wonder you came out of this alive!" he whispered against her hair. "If someone else told me told me this story I would not believe them. How did you not break?"

"What makes you think I didn't?" Cuddled close to the warmth and thunderstorm scent of him it was finally a little easier to admit. Her voice trembled nonetheless. "You saw me break down more than once. When I first met you I was so close to falling apart I wasn't sure I'd survive another year." She'd done what all Psy did: tried to push the bad things away, lock them in a part of her mind. But just like for the rest of her race it had only slowed the process if insanity. The darkness kept eating its way back to the surface.

He remembered her fractured psyche and the way she'd reacted when she learned that her friend had died. _I'm broken. And I can't be fixed._ And he understood that even with all her open emotionality there were yet more layers of her personality to reveal. Outside there was this rough Arrow persona – no, that was wrong. It wasn't a persona, a mask. Part of Alja actually _was_ a lethal Arrow, her mind always strategizing, always in defense mode ready to go to offense. But there were other parts she usually hid: There was the woman with the mischievous smile, who liked to joke about everything and provoke him out of his hard shell. And then she had that incredibly gentle creature of pure light and warmth inside her, her empath side, a being full of love and care for the world around her. Until now he had believed, that this was the part Alja covered the most. But it wasn't: Underneath it all was another layer, a dark part that was far more than the emotions and memories she had tried to compartmentalize as she'd once said. There weren't just some suppressed impulses and feelings. It was something worse: A part of Alja had lost hope somewhere along the way. Deep down she didn't fully believe that everything would be alright, didn't believe she really could save the Net. Deep down she didn't believe she was good enough to survive.

He saw that darkness shimmer through right now. And he knew he had seen its potential before, the night she'd made him confess about the death of her friend. And not only then, that hopelessness vibrated under the surface all the time and it peeked through whenever the Net or Alja's empathy was concerned. He would give anything to make it go away. "But you're here. You made it that far." Incredible, strong woman that she was.

"Only because you gave me something to hold onto. – I know you don't want to hear that, but it's you who keeps me stable." The softest brush of her lips against his jaw.

"You have no idea how much I want to hear it, how badly I want to believe it! But all those years. How did you not lose hope way before?" Her strength was just incredible.

Alja had to think for a moment. She'd been desperate when she was younger, but before the killing had taken its toll on her, giving up had never really been an option. She just always knew she had to find a way, she had to complete her task… "I think I always believed that somehow I was protected by something bigger." She murmured thoughtfully uncurling her hand on his chest right over his heartbeat in a gesture of reassurance that said _I'm alright now, and I'm here for you too_.

"That sounds almost religious." Emotion was one thing but faith was a big stretch for a Psy.

"No." She let her laughter vibrate softly against his chest. "I was thinking of something more concrete."

"The NetMind." The answer wasn't hard to find. It was one of the most important open questions Kaleb had about her.

"Yes, it gave me this purpose, the task of healing the Net. So it always made sense, that the NetMind wouldn't let me die, before I fulfilled it. – But you're right maybe it did serve the same purpose as a religion: Believing in a higher power, a greater sense of all those terrible things that happen. And a possibility of redemption for my sins."

He understood that. He had known father Perez long enough to have learned some things about belief and faith and why people turned to it in their need. He thought about his own uncanny relationship with the DarkMind. What did that make him? Had he sold his soul to the devil? He felt the sudden urge to shake his head to get the thought out of it. No, faith wasn't for him. It let him down a path that didn't look sane at all. "I don't believe that comparison works. The NetMind lacks the omniscience and the omnipotence of a divine being. It can be controlled by strong Tk or F-Psy. The Council had it almost completely under control for decades."

Alja was surprised to find Kaleb so engaged in the discussion. He must have his very own views of the guardian of the Net. "Maybe the structure of your Tk mind makes it easier for you to communicate with it, but I don't think anyone ever 'controlled' the NetMind. I think it functions in ways we cannot even begin to understand. And there's nothing religious about it. It's just how it is. It is too complex."

"It retrieves every bit of data I ask for, except, for when the information is not in the Net." Kaleb tried to hold against Alja's strange reverence for the neosentience.

"Just because it doesn't tell you, doesn't mean it doesn't know. It protects the empaths in the Net – the ones like Sascha Duncan and me. And it sure as hell didn't tell that to Enrique Santano or none of us would still be alive." Alja had learned early, that the NetMind had unique ways of deciding what information to reveal. And it had never betrayed her to anyone. Thinking about it, it really was curious. But it had never occurred to her to question the NetMind's decisions. Maybe it was a kind of faith after all.

"But Santano also used it to cover his crimes," Kaleb argued.

He sounded even a little frustrated now. This was very personal for Kaleb, Alja realized. "Santano's crimes were outside the Net. As I have learned over the years, the NetMind has very little concept of the 'real world'. Maybe it didn't understand, because it is only omniscient _inside_ the Net."

"If it were, I wouldn't be combing the Net for seven years for someone it told me to save," he blurted out without thinking further. The thought of Her, the sun-mind, had broken through with the now familiar pang of guilt.

"So it gave you a task too?" Alja asked very quiet, shifting her body so she could look him in the eyes better.

"One that kept me believing in hope for us – even for myself – for a long time. But also an impossible one. The person I am to help is not to be found in the Net."

"Maybe you need to look outside then."

Kaleb thought about it for a moment: The NetMind hadn't given him a clue how to find Her, although it must have more information about her. But why? Maybe Alja was right… She went on before he could follow that train of thought further.

"If the NetMind wants you to help that person you must try. Even if you cannot understand it now. The NetMind isn't just a librarian or a collection of data that accidentally got a consciousness. It is far more than that and whatever it does is to help the Net survive."

"You really are a believer aren't you?" He couldn't help but smile at that. Not because he wanted to mock her but because Alja didn't seem to know herself how far from Silence she had lived all her life. She just looked at him intensely, her face strained with something he couldn't understand at first. She seemed agitated. At first he thought she felt offended by his comment, and then he knew it was something different: He'd just told her something that frustrated him and she was already trying to fix it. It was in her nature. "I didn't tell you about this to add to your burden. It is my task and I will solve it one way or another. There are so many details about it you don't know…"

She let out a frustrated sigh. "You're right I know nothing about it. I know nothing about you at all."

He raised his brows. "You know more about me than any individual on the planet."

"But we both have a lifetime of building walls between us." Walls every Psy had to build to survive in the merciless world they had created over a century. "We won't tear them down in a few days."

"Yes, it's too much. We'll take it one step at a time."

"I want to, but I can't shake the feeling I'm running out of time – _we're_ running out of time," she whispered desperately.

There it was again: the darkness seeping through. And he could do nothing for her because he knew she might be right. "I know. I feel the same. But we still have a chance. And we're not as alone as you might think."

Alja took a deep breath, relaxed once more into those strong arms that could make her feel safe anywhere. "Yeah about that: Please tell me you have a special connection to the Ghost and did not just frame him for our strike on Pure Psy out of arrogance."

"I have a special connection to the Ghost and did not just frame him for our strike on Pure Psy out of arrogance," Kaleb stated simply, mimicking even her tone. Teasing her gave him time enough to realize, that after everything he'd learned about Alja it was really not that hard to reveal this particular secret. On the contrary, he wanted to tease her even more just to see that mock-annoyed look on her face.

"You're working with the rebellion?! With the Ghost himself?!" she exclaimed, sincerely surprised but already working to integrate that information into her picture of him.

Kaleb just gave her a wide grin in response, loved to see that sharp mind of hers working so intense it made her forehead wrinkle. "Well, not exactly _with_ the latter."

That last piece clicked into place. "You're _the Ghost_?!" And just like that all the gloom and darkness vanished from her features, being shoved aside by curious excitement. "You've got to be kidding me!" She straightened in his lap, eyeing him almost reproachfully.

"That's how I feel about you all the time." His smile was thoughtful this time.

"Hm… I guess a lot of things make sense now." Like no one having been able to ever find single clue of who the Ghost was, like the fact that he could accomplish impossible things within the Net. Or that no one could even guess at his hidden agenda.

Yes, it was a shocking revelation, she thought. But somehow she wasn't as surprised as she thought she'd be. It just didn't change that much for her. She'd fallen hard for Kaleb when he was still Silent and she had considered a few times, what a person he'd be when he felt. She of all people should've known he wouldn't be so different after all. He was demanding, pushing at her boundaries all the time but didn't seem to mind her pushing back. Only now she thought he even liked it. And being a notorious, volatile rebel? If anything that made her fall even harder for him. Because it fit.

She'd seen how he handled his staff in a way that was highly unorthodox for Psy. She'd noticed how he did a lot of things by himself that wouldn't have been necessary in his position. And then there was his behavior towards her from the start. It had been different from how any Psy – even one breaking Silence – would have acted: He'd sparred with her a few days into her employment. He'd had her demonstrate her projection on him instead of taking her to a lab and scientifically analyzing her skills in a controlled environment. She'd thought him a thrill-seeker then and she'd obviously been more right than she knew at the time.

Underneath all the Silence and power hunger Kaleb had probably always liked a little risk, a little danger – well maybe more than a little.

But still, for a single person to achieve what the Ghost had…"You must've been working on this for – I don't even know for how long."

"I was seven when the Protocol was rooted deep enough so I could start rational planning."

"That's insane!" The words were out before she could stop them, she was so taken aback. "I mean that fact, not you of course," she added hastily.

"No it's true. You don't survive the things Santano did to me as a child without going insane. Not even with Silence. The only reason I am coping is that I set my goal to destroy the Council so early. It's the thing that kept me going. Like you with your faith in the NetMind." His tone was cool now, factual. But not the kind of emotionless it had been under Silence. He was simply stating a fact none of them could escape.

He had kept his head above water by resorting to phantasies of omnipotence. It was what abused children did sometimes. Growing up in the Arrow Squad Alja should know. Only in Kaleb's case they weren't just phantasies. And that was why it had worked for so long. "And what if that goal gets out of reach?"

"I won't let it." No stubbornness. Simply another fact. "You've changed a lot for me Alja, but I will not lie to you: I still think the Council must be eradicated. And I still want control over the Net. That hasn't changed with breaking Silence. On the contrary, now I have you to protect. And at least half of what's left of the Council is the biggest threat to your life."

"But the Net is dying."

"You'll fix it." Unwavering trust lay in that simple statement. Trust that hurt Alja, because she didn't know if she could honor it.

"That's what I meant. I know what it feels like when the hope you're clinging to all your life slips away. And you've seen what it does to me."

"You won't let it get out of reach either." When she only answered with a worried expression on her face he added more lightly. "And since a dead Net is not much worth taking over, you have all my resources and support to fulfill your agenda first. Deal?"

That got him at least a little smile and a hesitant nod before the silence between them was broken by a loud growl from her stomach.

"Do you need food? I have some nutrition bars." He paused there for a second and then added almost apologetically: "Unfortunately I can offer nothing more appealing to the senses." He could teleport anything he knew the precise location of. But he had never bothered get that information about tasty foods. He would have to take care of that omission soon.

Alja noticed with a burst of warmth blooming inside her that Kaleb tried to care for her – again. It made her smile even more. "We have more important matters to discuss. Nutrition bars will do."


	48. Chapter 48

**Chapter 48**

Sascha was sitting at the makeshift conference table in one for DarkRiver's safe houses at the border of their territory. Well, former safe house, since today it had a visitor that would render it useless. Her mother.

Lucas had insisted not to have the meeting in town, especially any Psy operated building, for obvious safety reasons. Wherever there were too many Psy was considered a war zone by the changelings. To Sascha's surprise Nikita had agreed and so had Anthony. Together with Max, Nikita's security chief, Faith and Vaughn as well as Hawke as representative from SnowDancer the small room was almost crowded. A fact that had to unsettle any Silent Psy. But not Sascha, she felt safe with the pack around her. In addition she knew there were more DarkRiver and SnowDancer soldiers placed in the woods around the house. But she could also sense a lot of tension in the room. The discussion they were about to have required more trust than any party was ready or willing to give. Yet it was crucial to settle their alliances for a war they were all drawn into and hopefully avoid the fate Faith had seen for the Psy.

"Something happened in the Net. Rumor is there was an open confrontation between at least three Councilors and Kaleb Krychek was involved." It was Lucas who started to speak, being the host to this extraordinary meeting.

Nikita answered on behalf of her and Antony, sounding strangely careful for once. "We can confirm that. Since it was neither of us it has to have been Ming, Shoshanna and/or Tatiana. Although nobody seems to know what exactly happened. There was a massive disturbance in the dataflow and some damage to the structure of the Net."

"Is that your usual way of carrying out a war?" Hawke asked his tone acerbic. They had agreed to have him as the only representative of SnowDancer, to get a feel of the whole situation first. But Sienna and Judd were waiting hidden outside in case their knowledge would be needed to up the pressure on the Councilors a little. Sascha kept updating them telepathically on everything that was said inside. "There are quite a lot of inexplicable things going on with the Psy at the moment…"

"And Kaleb Krychek seems to be involved in all of them," His fellow alpha added. Both of them were not in the mood for polite conversation ever since they'd heard of Faith's prediction.

"Yes, that is concerning. I didn't expect him to make himself a target to the other Silence supporting Councilors," Nikita admitted. Which was a severe understatement. Ever since the ball incident she'd been trying to find out what Kaleb was up to. But her considerable efforts had proven fruitless. "However, the consequence is that an open confrontation is inevitable now."

"As to your question whether this is our usual mode of war…" Anthony completed her answer, "The Psy didn't have a war in recent history. We don't know how this might develop." Eyes skating towards his daughter as they had several times before, he added: "But I think you have some information for us too." And it wouldn't be good news. He had never seen Faith look so worn out. On the contrary she'd been bursting with health ever since she left the Net to be with the changelings.

Faith had held back the news from any Psy outside the pack so far, because she knew they could cause panic even among the most Silent. But now she told them what she'd seen, her voice so brittle it seemed it might fail any moment.

Of course it was Nikita, who reacted the most composed to the imminent extinction of her species. "That is not very specific. Can you try and trigger the vision again to give us a more concrete idea of the cause of the destruction?"

"What do you think she's been doing ever since she saw it?" Vaughn's retort was a snarl. "That's the reason she can barely walk."

Faith put a hand on his arm. He relaxed a fraction. "That is all I have at the moment." Her voice held more power than her worn out looks gave her credit for. She didn't have to remind them, they'd have nothing without her. And when she talked on, it filled Vaughn with pride that she could still sound like one of the damn Psy. She made it impossible for them to see her as weak. "I will inform all present parties if that changes. But right now we should focus more on the situation at hand."

"Yes, what about Krychek? He has put himself against Silence quite publicly. Added to the confrontation he was involved in that suggests he isn't allied with any of the other Councilors. You used to have an alliance with him, didn't you Nikita?" Lucas did nothing to hide the provocation in his tone. He wanted to bug the crap out of the cold bitch who was his mate's mother. And he bet it rubbed her the wrong way that he knew quite some of her dirty secrets.

"A fleeting one, not enough to keep him from stonewalling me now." The admission surprised everyone in the room. It wasn't like Nikita to admit such a weakness. "At this point we must assume he has an agenda he won't share with us."

Hawke wasn't about to buy a bit of this bullshit. "So you're saying you know basically nothing and expect us to believe that?"

"He wants the Net. He always did." Nikita ignored the open provocation, but gave them at least something. "He is probably preparing to take over the moment the chaos of the war is big enough for him to seize power. And his actions were perfect catalysts for that kind of chaos."

"Is that just a theory? Or do you have more?" Hawke asked still pissed but satisfied he'd gotten something out of her.

Nikita nodded at Max, who joined the conversation at her hint. "We have detected movements in some remote facilities owned by Krychek. Some of his corporations are fronts for military units. It seems he's mobilizing his armed forces."

"That would fit with the theory," Lucas mused.

Anthony had kept relatively quite so far, but now he seemed to want to avoid the topic. "But there isn't any indication that he might move on our sectors in or out of the Net. Although he should be monitored, he doesn't seem to be a direct threat to any of our interests at the moment."

They wouldn't wait until he became one, Hawke thought, but it was obvious, that was all they'd get for now. So they'd let it go. They had enough other problems to discuss. "Alright. So what about the Psy immigration into your sector and with that our territory?" Changelings controlled the city but the Councilors held reign over the Psy population. "More Psy in the area means more trouble for us."

"We won't deny any Silence refugees sanctuary." A hard and very clear statement from Anthony.

"Is that what they are?" Lucas asked, doubting any word out of a Psy Councilors mouth.

"The other Councilors – excluding Kaleb – have all tightened the regimes of the rehabilitation centers. There are now so many individuals tagged at risk, it's influencing the economy in their sectors," Nikita explained.

With a sting to her heart Sascha realized she hadn't even brushed the refugee topic in her explanation. For her mother everything was about business. But not for her. "So you will shut down the Centers?"

"We agreed the other Councilor's attempt to stabilize Silence through rehabilitation is ineffective. So we will stop reconditioning at-risk cases unless there are violent tendencies in the subjects." The decision had been made some time ago and immigration in their sector had increased after the information had spread inside the Net. That was how they were so certain it was about Silence.

Faith spoke next, her voice still weak but even harder. She too didn't accept the explanation easily. "But the stability of Silence is not the only stability issue in the Net. How will that affect or be affected by the increase in population density?"

"So far the Net is most stable in the part of the world we control." Antony answered his daughter with less restraint in his voice than usual. "As Nikita said: Stabilizing Silence through rehabilitation is ineffective. Even more: allowing Silence to falter to a certain degree seems to increase stability and lower the rates of violent outbursts." That got him a sharp look from Nikita. But if Faith already knew about the state of the Net, all the changelings probably knew about the increasing violence problem. So the information would rather calm them, than create a vulnerability for him and Nikita.

"So you don't expect major hostile action on our ground soon?" Their explanations seemed solid so far, but Hawke had to be sure they didn't try to hide something. And he hoped at that point they were interested enough in an alliance not to lie to his face directly.

"We should prepare for the possibility, but right now it seems the first skirmishes will be carried out inside the Net or within the territories of other Councilors," was Antony's clear answer. Nikita nodded in agreement.

* * *

"What they gave us about Krychek… it's not barely enough. We need more intel on that," Hawke spat out the moment the Psy congregation was gone. The two alphas, Sascha, Faith and Vaughn had been joined by Judd and Sienna immediately.

"My mother is wary of him. She is truly unsure about his goals," Sascha mused. "And she wasn't lying about his interests either. When I worked with her, she never even considered him a threat to her business interests. That's why they had an alliance. Kaleb only ever wanted real power inside the Net."

"Ok, then we'll keep an eye on him and decide on an action when it becomes necessary." Lucas was satisfied by that explanation for now. Kaleb might be a wild card and they'd collect more data about him but they didn't have to rack their brains about him right now, though Hawke seemed to disagree on that matter. But right now Lucas was more interested in what his sentinel had to tell. "You talked to Anthony alone earlier, Vaughn. Anything new from the rebellion?"

"There was a quite big hit on Pure Psy, but nothing that concerns us directly. They were planning to take over the rehab centers but the Ghost forwarded all the names necessary to stop their operation in the Centers under Nikita's and Anthony's care."

"The rebellion still relies on that rogue?" Lucas wanted to know. He had learned, the infamous Ghost was quite a number in the rebellion but he couldn't understand how they put up with an ally so volatile and unpredictable.

Hawke had just drawn a breath to give his opinion on the topic, when Faith suddenly exclaimed: "Wait!" Then she paused for a few tensed seconds. Her subconsciousness had made a connection that lingered just out of her reach. There was this uneasy feeling about another bit of information she hadn't told so far. But she had to, if they were to get to the root of this. "The cataclysmic events in the Net might be connected to something else I once saw." It hadn't been a vision but a conversation with the NetMind. But that was irrelevant right now. "There is a crack in the shields of the Psy Net that has been there for longer than you might expect. That fissure is caused by a single individual who will probably cause the Net to shatter. – I am certain that individual is the Ghost."

The last words dropped into a silence so thick you could have cut it.

Hawke and Judd exchanged a look that was so heavy with meaning it escaped no one in the room.

"It's time," was all Judd said.

"Hell, yes it is!" Hawke answered and four pairs of eyes turned towards them in silent expectation.

Only Sienna knew what was about to come. Even dangerous as the knowledge was, her mate hadn't kept the true identity of the Ghost from her.

"It may be Kaleb Krychek is more important in this than we thought until now." The others stayed absolutely quiet while Hawke revealed the Ghost's identity and explained why they'd kept it to themselves so far. He also related everything else they had discovered. There was no reason to keep anything else from their allies once the information about the rebel's identity was out. And maybe it would soothe Luc's reaction to being kept in the dark by his blood ally.

It probably did. Lucas took a deep breath before finally speaking. "Seriously Hawke you got to that in the nick of time. You held on to that information one second longer and I would have beaten the crap out of you the moment I found out. Actually I might still decide to do it after we deal with this mess."

So Luc was pissed about being kept in the dark. But he'd only threatened to beat up Hawke, not to break the alliance. Their bond was stronger than that, Hawke realized relieved. So instead of saying he'd like to see the cat try, as he usually would, he nodded at the other alpha stating: "Anytime you want to get it out of your system."

"And don't expect me to let you out on that one," Lucas answered before getting back to the more important topic at hand. "So what the hell is going on here? Krychek used to be a bad guy, didn't he? A big one. The only reason we haven't been worrying our asses off about him is that he is obviously not interested in any of our territory. And now you're working with him?"

"No one's saying he isn't a bad guy anymore." Judd's calm, measured voice. "And I'm the one who has worked with him on occasion for a long time, even before I knew his identity myself. He has been useful for the rebellion."

"But if he wants the Net he is just using the rebellion," Faith said sharply. "I have to warn my father." After all Anthony was leading the rebellion inside the Net and working with the rogue as well.

"We can't be sure about that," Judd countered. "He is acting erratic. That doesn't necessary mean he is about to betray the rebellion." Or was he deluding himself into trusting a man he saw as a mirror of the dark future he had once believed to be his own? Had he gotten too emotional to see the truth? "We don't know what happens to the rebellion, if we tell them now."

"I agree," Sascha said gently, understanding Faith's urge to warn the ones in the Net she still had a connection to. "This information is far too dangerous to be given to anyone inside the Net. If we risk it, it might very well set in motion the events that lead to the cataclysm you saw, Faith."

"But we have to do something. He might be the key to this." Faith didn't hide her desperation anymore.

"I'll try to get in contact with him. It is hard to get a hold of him lately, but maybe I'll find out something more. I also have other contacts in the Net, I can try," Judd suggested. He'd been wanting to contact Aden about Alja Dardo and why she was with Krychek anyway. And he had a feeling the Arrow was part of the 'key' as well.

"I'll get Dorian to dig up all he can find about him," Lucas added.

Sienna knew that wouldn't be enough. If things really looked so grave in the Net, they needed an emergency plan for the Psy. After all she knew a lot about destruction. "And we should have a meeting with all the Psy outside the Net – or at least Walker and Ashaya." Including Amara, Ashaya's sociopathic twin, probably wasn't such a good idea. "Together we can work out a solution how we can influence the course of events from outside the Net."

"We could also consider involving Katya and Dev." Faiths voice still held little hope. "Maybe the Forgotten can help stabilize some smaller nets, when the Net collapses."

They decided on the strategy and got to putting it into action at once. But no one had missed what Faith had said: _when_ the Net collapses, not _if_.


	49. Chapter 49

**Chapter 49**

Ming didn't feel. But for the first time he wasn't completely calm either. Even the incidents with Katya Haas and Sienna Lauren hadn't affected him this much, although both women had tried and almost succeeded to kill him.

Had he felt he would have known that deep down he was motivated by nothing rational – not even lust for power – but by anger. And even further hidden below that aggression lay a fear so that had spread its roots so deep not even Silence could stop its influence.

What he knew however was the cause of his unsettlement: Alja Dardo. The cunning empath was always one step ahead of him. And now of all times the mysterious rebel everyone knew as the Ghost had thwarted his plans for Pure Psy. At this point it wouldn't be surprising, if she had something to do with that too. But no, now he was getting paranoid.

If he could only get to her. But he couldn't. Not yet. Just like he couldn't get to the Ghost. But there was one way he could indirectly weaken Alja Dardo. And that was the person she'd chosen to instrumentalize. He'd never have thought, that of all his adversaries Kaleb Krychek would be the one, he considered the easiest target. How could he have overlooked such a threat? It didn't matter now. The only thing that did was getting back in control.

Shoshanna wasn't amused about his call. "I'm not your puppet Ming," she answered harshly to his request.

"But we have an agreement. And since Tatiana failed it's your turn now."

"What about your turn? You haven't been any more successful so far. Maybe you're too busy trying to squeeze the last bit of profit out of Henry's ridiculous fanatics. I told you they're not worth the time." That was why she'd left Pure Psy to Ming and not taken control over them like she had over all other assets of the deceased Councilor after his death.

"They are very useful for my designs. The Ghost's attack has caused a setback that will slow down my plans but otherwise they are unimpaired. I will solve the problem in the end. But in the meantime…"

"It was stupid of you not to anticipate it. You're too focused on that woman." But really she had been surprised herself at the Ghost's sudden attack on Pure Psy. And the rebel was a threat they faced together too. As much as she disliked it, they were in this together. "Are you still sure it's only her? Kaleb didn't react as you predicted he would under her influence."

"Maybe I misjudged her agenda." Only to himself he admitted fully that he didn't know nearly enough about the elusive empath. "But not Kaleb. I knew his mentor. You can believe me. He is not a threat to Silence or the power-structure of the Council. It is the very thing that gives him the liberties he wants." Ming was certain Kaleb Krychek had turned out just as sociopathic as Santano Enrique.

"I don't care what he does in his spare time but I am pretty sure Kaleb wants more than a little 'liberty'. And we haven't yet talked about what he did to the Net. Or what he almost did to us. He is dangerous with or without that woman's influence."

"I agree he has become too powerful to let him continue. But we can't risk his death at this point." They might be blinded by false faith in Silence but even they had begun to understand how weak the Net had become.

"Is containment possible?"

"Perhaps but it would require excessive planning. First we need to get Alja Dardo out of the way."

Shoshanna weighed her options. Ming was circling back to that mysterious woman no one had known of a few weeks before. She wasn't even sure, she truly existed. But her power was weakened already by Henry's idiotic actions so she really had no options but to cooperate with Ming to a certain point. "What do you want?"

"Find me something on Kaleb that will weaken his influence. Anything. Leave her out of it. The public doesn't need to be made aware of her anymore, than it already is. Even discrediting her won't do any good. Just keep Kaleb busy. I need a few days maybe a week. Then we get them both out of the equation."

He was asking for her medial influence. It was her biggest asset. "I'll do it, if you get Tatiana to provide better shielding for me. I'm not turning myself into an easy target for him." She didn't have to fear a physical attack due to the impossibility of murdering a Councilor that was caused by the condition of the Net. But Kaleb could attack a mind and cause instant insanity.


	50. Chapter 50

**Chapter 50**

The NetMind was restless. Within all the vastness of knowledge it consisted of, there was this one fact that grew ever more prominent: It was dying. The Net, every mind in it and with that the NetMind itself would die.

Within its vast presence every fact every piece of data was linked in a pattern that was as clear as it was beautiful. The NetMind had tried to show that pattern to the minds, make them see they were killing themselves. But the minds couldn't understand, they were too separated, too limited. There were a few who understood bits and pieces, but the NetMind always had to cut out most of the connections in the pattern to make them see a simple fact. It had talked for so long to some of the strongest minds within: the mind of life, the mind of change and the mind of time. But they did not connect, too separate from each other. And then the mind of time had left. So it couldn't even warn the others where they were heading.

The NetMind shifted part of its consciousness to the mind of life again, brushed her with its gentle touch as she was used too. _? ? ?_

She answered at once, her pictures unconnected as so often. _Why did you not tell me he was the Ghost? _

_? ? ?_

_Kaleb is the Ghost. You did not tell me. Why?_

There it was: simple connections. Answering as simple would require removing a lot of links. It would be easier, if the NetMind could just look inside the mind to see her patterns. Then it would know what answers she could understand. But that would hurt her. The minds had chosen to separate and the NetMind would never violate a minds free choice. _These shields. _A picture of the swirling darkness that represented the Ghosts shields the mind of change. _Ghost don't want to be seen. _

_You didn't tell me because he didn't want to be seen?_

_Don't tell minds about mind's secrets. _

_I see that now._

_But I tell you … _It tried a new set of images of opening up, connecting, being together. The mind understood _trust him!_ But the concept still didn't fit.

_I do trust him._

_Heal Net. _It sent the same picture it had given her so many times before: empathic energy, pure emotion flowing through strong veins that lined the whole Net.

For Alja it was the symbol of her continued failure. _I'll do everything I can. I swear I will. _

Her frustration and desperation seeped out unseen by others. But the NetMind felt them. However it couldn't hold them or change them. They trickled through its existence somewhere to that lost part, the part that wasn't connected any more. The NetMind didn't feel the pain of that fatal injury; it only knew the other part felt it.


	51. Chapter 51

**Chapter 51**

Alja stood in the middle of Kaleb's kitchen, dressed in her usual Arrow gear. She was demolishing a few of the cardboard like nutrition bars while she stretched out her muscles making up at least a little for the training she'd missed due to the recent events, that had destroyed her usual schedule. She'd been surprised when she'd finally gotten a closer look at the entire house: The kitchen was fully furnished though empty except for some boxes of nutrition bars and mineral drinks. The other rooms were sparsely furnished like any Psy would have them, but the design and architecture was human. There were thick soft carpets, high ceilings and ornate window frames. It made a strange contrast. Kaleb had explained that he'd only bought the villa because no one would expect him to settle in such a human environment. But Alja liked it. In here she didn't feel as trapped as in the dull gray boxes the Psy usually called their homes.

Now she was waiting for Kaleb to return from some business that had called him away. She understood he couldn't afford to be away from his duties as a Councilor and businessman all the time. Still right now she was anxious and nervous to get to work on her projection. She hadn't had that much hope in a long time. And she desperately wanted to know if Kaleb could help her solve the task.

When Kaleb teleported back in and pulled her into his arms, she let him but only for a moment. "We have so much more to do. And you need to get some food into you first!" She grabbed a plate from the counter where she'd put on some nutrition bars she'd already unwrapped. "I made dinner honey!" Even tensed up as she was she tried to smile. It just felt so good now she could let that side of her out to play.

He gave a startled chuckle, heart warmed by her joke and the mischievous smile she gave him. And started inhaling the bars after pressing a quick but demanding kiss in her lips. "Delicious," he stated sarcastically in between the bites. "My information on intimate relationships must be wrong. I thought it took women longer to get so – what's the word – wifey."

She laughed shortly but turned serious again. "I know Tks burn a lot of energy. And I was nervous. – The NetMind asked me about healing the Net again. I think it gets impatient, if that's possible at all." She also related what else they had 'talked' about.

Kaleb thought for a moment. Should he tell her that the NetMind had come to him, too? It hadn't done that for a while, but yes now it seemed to get impatient. "You're probably right about us not understanding as much about the NetMind as I thought." He remembered the pictures it had shown him. The image of the Sun-Mind still had an overwhelming impact on what he now knew to be his conscience. Then it had shown him a sequence of a hand reaching out, interlinking with another, the silhouette of a man carrying a woman across a star strewn, dark field. Another request to save Her. He felt the guilt about failing his task now. But his conscience was no longer bound only to Her, the Sun-Mind. Alja held a part of it as well. And she was there – reachable, touchable, real. He didn't want to burden her with his failures, not when she was struggling so hard avoid her own. "Don't worry about it now. I think we should start working on your empathy."

Alja thought for a moment. "Could we take a walk outside?" Nature always made things easier for her. And there was an extensive stretch of it around the house. Alja hadn't seen any other houses from any of the windows.

"I avoid being visible around the house. Would my mountain cabin suffice as well?"

Her face lit up. "Of course! I love that place. But doesn't it take too much energy to teleport around half the globe all the time?"

He grabbed the last nutrition bar and gave her a very arrogant smile in response. "I'm a cardinal." Then he wrapped his energy around her shields, demanding of her to flex them. He was getting pushy. She liked it.

"I'm a cardinal too," She retorted once they were in the middle of the beautiful flower field. "and if I had a crowd of people in front of me, I'm sure I could control all their emotions." She had even practiced it a few times with changelings and humans, when she was near a protest or a conflict between larger groups of people. "But in the Net I shouldn't need the physical closeness. It should transport the empathic energy just like it does telepathy."

Kaleb imagined the silver strands of data flowing in flawless streams along the threads of the Net. He couldn't imagine emotion would work like this. Not when it felt so unpredictable and wild inside him. He tried to pull Alja close once more. She came willingly to his side, but started walking once she had slipped her arm around his waist. "Do you know the mechanism of how it should work?"

"The NetMind showed me there should be veins. At least that's how it looked, a network of larger and finer vessels made to carry emotional energy. But there aren't. The Net can't hold my power. Every time I project it just dissipates into the void. I'm afraid the Net lost that quality due to Silence somehow. I'm also afraid that the damage is irreversible." There it was again the darkness creeping in on her from that hopeless place inside her even Kaleb couldn't reach. She wouldn't let it win this time. "Maybe we need to allow emotion first, before I can start working with it. But it makes no sense the NetMind said I would _bring_ emotion to the Net."

"Show me what the NetMind showed you. How it should look."

She sent him the image and he was stunned by its beauty. If this was what the Net looked like with emotion he wondered how his race could have ever given it up. This had nothing to do with the cold data-highways of the Net as it was now. There were rivers and streams parting into the smallest trickles and then joining again, living an ever changing. It seemed they were made of liquid that was glowing with a magnificent golden light from within, that refracted into all the colors of the rainbow on its surface. It was like nothing he had ever seen. Or was it? The base structure resembled vaguely that of the Net as he saw it. But the strings he saw when he opened his mental eyes to the Net were steel cables and wires tautened by an invisible force. They were far more rigid, more like bones.

Suddenly that reminded him of how his own energy had started to seep out of the Net unable to seal it back together where the deadly rot hat taken root. Maybe Alja was right. Maybe the veins were gone. Maybe life had already left the Net. And all he'd been doing was trying to keep the naked bones from turning to dust.

Alja felt Kaleb go darker with every second. The prospect in front of her was only underlining that feeling: Unconsciously they had walked toward the steep wall of the canyon. But damn the man had it with abysses close to his living places. He had an even scarier gorge right next to his home. She'd seen it earlier looking out of the bathroom window after showering. Now she felt the urge to pull Kaleb closer to her, unsure if he'd stop walking when they reached the edge. Just as she wanted to start scalding herself for such a stupid irrational thought he did stop abruptly and kissed her. Hard. His hand wrapped around her nape in a hold that was more than proprietary. It demanded. His thunderstorm energy crashed inside her, igniting her body and soul. She gave into it without hesitation, her defenses against him long gone.

After a few seconds he pulled back allowing her to breathe, but not releasing his steel hold of her.

"Wow! What was that about?" she asked panting. She wasn't even sure what hit her. Kaleb had been passionate before, but this was different. And she wanted more.

"I needed it," was all he said, his voice was pitched dangerously low.

Then his hand on her relaxed and he looked a little confused, a little embarrassed even. And then Alja understood: He'd lost control again. And he wasn't used to it. She by contrast couldn't get enough of that. She wasn't scared by his intensity. But that it had happened after she showed him the image of the veins made her uneasy. It could mean something very good or something very bad. And she had an inkling it was the latter. "Okay. And what made that come on?"

"I'm not sure." Inside he was still trying to shake the images of death from his mind. Images of a death far worse than any even he had witnessed. He needed something more. Hope. A straw to hold on to. "I think I may have gotten a glimpse of what you're afraid of. Of the Net truly dying."

Alja's eyes filled with tears she had no hope of holding back. It was one thing to have that imagination inside her head. Having Kaleb say it out aloud was quite something else. Desperation rushed inside her with a staggering force.

Kaleb wished at once he'd kept his mouth shut. Contrary to his belief, Alja was obviously not capable of taking everything her threw at her. She might be forgiving about him, but she clearly wasn't about herself and her own duties. Her eyes swam and the stars in them started that falling motion again. "Hey! Calm down!" he tried. "We've only just started working on this together. There are a million options to explore, before we give up." He didn't even know how he knew what to say. It just came from a part that wanted Alja to be well again, to see the stars in her eyes glow with peace again. It wasn't enough however, but at least she opened up to him.

"What if it's me?" she whispered, her voice broken by fear. "There is a possibility that I lost the ability to heal the Net, because of what I did. I went against my nature so badly it might have damaged my empathy permanently. We have to face it: There's a good chance I'm a spoiled cure, broken beyond repair."

"That is a possibility we won't explore then," he stated calmly. She had been so strong for him given in so often, when he knew she'd have wanted – needed more from him. Now he could give her something back: Logic, reason and clear thinking, when she couldn't rely on them in her despair.

Alja couldn't believe her ears. "What? You want to ignore it? Just like that?"

"It's logical. If you – what I do not believe in the least – really have lost that ability, there's no use thinking about it. We'll be dead anyway then. I might not be as good as you in handing out hope, but I can rule out all the instances that would take it away from you."

"That's… that's almost sweet." Her attempt at a smile failed miserably. "But you don't see… I don't need the biofeedback as much as any other Psy. When the Net collapses I will have several hours to live while my whole race is vanishing off the face of the planet." A tear choked pause before she forced out more words that burned like bile in her throat. "In my worst nightmares I even see the changelings and humans celebrate that day." Probably not openly. The economy would suffer a severe shock after all, but it would also recover. "No one will shed a tear over us. And with good reason. We were a strong and proud people once. But we became a nightmare. We turned our healers into weapons."

Her words hit him hard. He couldn't fight the upcoming image he wished he could burn from his mind as soon as he'd glimpsed it: Alja, clad in Arrow black, standing alone in a sea of dead Psy bodies that stretched from beneath her feet towards the horizon. But the sight of those millions of bodies wasn't even the worst. It was the look on her face: Her eyes empty, her beautiful features drawn into bitter lines of utter desperation and defeat. It had an uncanny resemblance with the Swan girl's face just before he'd ended her life. It made him feel sick accompanied by a sense of guilt and deepest betrayal. But when he felt the emotional signature that came with the image he knew it wasn't his. Alja was upset or trusting enough to let one of her own horrors slip out and he'd caught the image and the accompanying feeling. And while he had never known what it meant to care for their race, he could see it now through her. "I won't let that happen. I will help you save every single one of them. Do you trust me?" He didn't care if he made a promise he wasn't sure he could keep. He'd do a lot worse than that if it meant she'd be better.

Alja felt the warmth of Kaleb's words seep into her blood, fueling her determination, her own strength. Yes, this wouldn't be easy. But she was no longer alone. She just had to learn to rely on that. She had to learn to truly trust too. "Yes." The single word sounded no longer broken and her smile worked this time.

"Alright then. Can you show me how you've been trying to do it?"

"Of course. In a secluded area where no one else can see it. I can generate one with my shields. At least _they_ work well enough inside the Net." She looked up at him, caught his gaze and then she let herself go soft.

All the tension left her muscles, her body and her face. She looked incredibly vulnerable except for the determination in her eyes that never let his out of focus. Again Kaleb felt as if she was pulling him inside with those sky-fall eyes. A second later he felt her shields expand under his psychic senses, inviting him to slip in. He did. He already knew it was just the first layer. Behind it she had hidden both their minds when she mimicked the other mind. But this time she let him pass the first layer, then another. For a moment he was stunned by the complexity of those shields. Every layer looked, felt slightly different: flowing waterfalls, rippling currents, liquid mirrors. In that third layer he saw his own mental presence reflected, realized he'd never been this close to her. "Alja what are you doing?"

"Showing you what you wanted to see. – Inside."

_What?_ "No you mustn't. You can't let me inside your shields. It's not safe!" he exclaimed, trying to pull back out. But the entrance he'd come in through had already closed, and before him another layer parted to encompass his mental presence with gentle warmth.

"No it's ok. I never had shields against you anyway. You're under my skin, in my blood. You're in my every heartbeat." She told him on the mental plane. She wanted him there now. As close as possible, where no other mind had ever been before.

Kaleb's reaction however couldn't have been further from what she'd expected at laying herself bare before him.

He broke the physical contact but he wasn't kicked out as he'd expected. She'd let him in too deep already. She hadn't just expanded her shields around him. She'd truly let him in. And his only way back was if she let him or if he tore his way out. "Stop it! Stop right now!" he shouted at her. All he could think of were screaming minds, cracking bones and imploding heads, blurred memories of blood and terror taking over his mind. He couldn't be here, couldn't be trusted around a mind without shields. That was all he knew.

"Ok. Calm down." She let him slip out at once, taken aback by his intense rejection. "I thought you would like to…"

"You can never ever let me inside your shields." He cupped her face in his hands tenderly but forcing her to hold his gaze. He looked troubled, almost terrified. "I could hurt you."

"That's not how my shields work. I have to consciously allow you in. They'll instinctively snap shut the moment something hurts me. And I could still make you run for your life with my projection. I'm not scared of you," she countered stubbornly.

"But I am." The admission cost him but Alja had to understand. "I know this is something you just don't want to comprehend, but there is a part of me you can't trust. A part even I don't trust. The only reason I can be with you, the only reason I can let down my guard enough to _feel_, is that you _have_ those shields. Promise me you'll never try this again."

Although he tried to keep his voice and his hold on her gentle his words slashed through her like razorblades laced with poison. She had gone against her nature for so long. Now all she wanted was to be able to let everything out, share it. And she was pushed to do it even harder by the invisible clock that was ticking inside her, telling her she had to hurry if she wanted to fulfill what she believed was her destiny. But of course she was going too fast. She kept forgetting that Kaleb hadn't felt until a few days, maybe weeks ago. And he was more than ambivalent about it. She couldn't push him as hard as she would herself. So she went for the compromise again. But she knew she couldn't do this forever. Someday soon she wouldn't be able to give in, too desperate herself to be close to him. "Ok. I understand. One day we will know all of each other's secrets. But it doesn't have to be… no – I see that it can't be now."

Kaleb wanted to object again, but there was such security, such trust in her words that even the thought of having her know his deadliest secrets one day suddenly held hope. He just wished he had the words to tell her how much her understanding nature her openness meant to him, even if he couldn't give her everything she wanted right now. But he would fight for a way to give it to her, he would fight for a way to keep her.

* * *

They spent the next two days trying to balance both their duties in Kaleb's business and working on Alja's projection, and the nights in each other's arms trying to forget that their progress was excruciatingly slow. The whole Psy world was destabilizing further: The violent outbursts in the Psy population that were caused by the malicious, ever spreading rot, had slowly reached a point where it was impossible to hide them from the populace. One of the very few goals all former Councilors had shared up until then.

Now Shoshanna shamelessly used the numbers in her propaganda machine. NewsNet broadcasted daily reports illustrated with so called scientific proof and expert ratings about how the incidents of violence were linked to the anti-Silence-policy of some of the Councilors.

To their luck that didn't target Kaleb alone. Nikita and Anthony were considered at least neutral on the subject of Silence. The history of both their daughters was fueling hope within rebel circles as well as in those who were only just starting to question the Protocol.

But all that deepened the rift that went through the Psy population: One part was desperately holding on to the Silence Protocol that had given them superiority over the other races and safety from the monsters inside for a hundred years. The other part realized that Silence may have been a false hope from the start and began looking for alternatives that were still suppressed rigidly by the Council superstructure even in the areas controlled by the more liberal Councilors. None of them was ready to give up any of their power to the populace.

Kaleb was caught in some sort of political limbo: He couldn't take any action that would tip the balance even more. Not before they had figured out how to use Alja's skills to stop the disintegration of the Net. So he had to stall Nikita's requests for a meeting and find excuses for Anthony as to why the Ghost didn't use that perfect opportunity to take the rebellion into the open. Worse, if things went on like that Anthony might very well take matters into his own hands. He was intelligent enough to have realized the fate of the Net hung in the balance. But the older Councilor couldn't know how fragile their future had become already. Or could he? After all, his daughter was probably the best foreseer in the world.

Their last hope might be to take a leap of faith and start to trust another party in this dangerous game. But it was a step he couldn't take yet. Not with so much sudden insecurity. He'd told Alja his goals hadn't changed. But that wasn't entirely true, because all his reasons had. Everything seemed to revolve around her now, when it had been for cold power and revenge mere weeks ago. Yes, he still wanted the Net, but for her. And he found himself unable to fully trust the suggestions of his mind. Although he knew by now his feelings weren't caused by her projection, the sheer intensity of them made him pause. The emotions she had brought to him were the best thing that had ever happened in his life, but he wished he could think as cold and logical as he once had, because he had to make the right decisions for her. She was suddenly so much more important than the rebellion and even if their goals aligned now more than ever, he wasn't sure whom to trust. That was why he had also ignored Judd's urgent requests for a meeting. So he couldn't ask the only man who might have gone through a similar change for advice. Worse he couldn't access the only source that remained on empathy – Alice Eldridge. And even Alja hadn't urged him to contact Judd after they had talked about the political situation and after he'd explained that the scientist probably didn't have any more insights in Alja's abilities than he had already discovered from the excerpt in her book that Judd had given him. Because Alja was as wary as he was, having fought most of her life alone as well.

"We need more time to figure all of this out," she'd said. "Sadly that's the one thing we haven't got."

Even with all her cautious fear she couldn't have guessed how right she was about that.


	52. Chapter 52

**Chapter 52**

Father Xavier Perez awaited the Ghost in the shadows of the dark backyard behind the church that would hide the man's face as always. He had no interest in discovering his true identity, knowing some secrets better stayed secret. But he was surprised that the Ghost had requested to meet him alone. "You know with the recent turn of events I alone can't do much to help you anymore." As the human part of their triumvirate Xavier had always been the most passive of them. He was more important as their connection to the humans and the few Psy who were starting to turn toward faith as their world slowly unraveled. But now the rebellion seemed to have to focus even more on things inside the Net.

"This is not about our usual work. I wanted to discuss something personal with you," the Ghost answered quietly.

"So you came to the father tonight, not to the soldier?" Another surprise.

"If it is possible for you to separate the two, then yes."

"_You _have always been the strictly political figure, the symbol of the rebellion. Can _you_ separate your personal matters from our work?" He sat down on one of the benches in the yard that were positioned so their backs were facing each other.

"You're right, nothing that concerns me is ever without political consequences, but it is a personal matter." The Ghost took the seat on the opposite bench allowing them to sit together without revealing his face.

"Then my vow of confidentiality holds, if you want it to," Xavier answered thoughtfully. "Is this about you breaking Silence?"

A short hesitation. "It already shows?"

"No it's more a gut feeling. You're not the first Psy to come to me and rely on my vows. But I think I wouldn't have noticed it, if I hadn't seen this before – with Judd."

"Are we so much alike in your eyes?" The Ghost wondered if breaking the Protocol could be as easy for him as it had apparently turned out with Judd.

"In that aspect, maybe. You were both fully Silent, when I met you. Both of you changed. But I guess there are some differences. For example you're still in the Net. You don't have the same amount of emotional stability around you. But that wasn't your question, was it?"

"No… No, but maybe this is about stability. I don't know how to even say it… I am not sure how to act anymore. Are emotions always so violent?"

"Violent? No of course not there are plenty of pleasant, peaceful emotions." Was this the madness in the Ghost Judd had hinted at? Was he talking about insanity rather than instability?

"That's not what I meant. Do you know if they always are so violent for the one who feels them? It's like it's turning me inside out, like its shaking the very basis of my life, of who I am, of everything."

Xavier found he couldn't keep the calm countenance he used to practice as a man of God as he began to understand what the Ghost was telling him. "The answer is no. Emotions are not always like that. And I will give you one piece of advice. But this is not the advice of a Father, because that is not what you're looking for. I'm telling you this as a man, who has lost what he held most dear in the world: If you have found someone who incites the kind of emotion you just described, you never let her go. You never even let her out of your sight for one single moment and you protect her with your life. It will destroy you if you lose her."

And with those simple words Xavier had described exactly how Kaleb felt.

"I didn't tell you what caused the emotion. Why do you assume it is a woman?"

"Oh right. I assumed you weren't drawn to men and that you have no children of your own."

"That is correct."

"Then it can only be a woman, nothing else does that to a man."

Xavier knew that the father, even the rebel would have answered differently, maybe more cautious. But the man couldn't. The friend couldn't.


	53. Chapter 53

**Chapter 53**

Lucas was thankful about any piece of information he could get on the Psy situation. Faith's prediction had rattled the pack deeply. He and two of his sentinels were mated to Psy. And even without that fact the implications of Faith's vision were more than scary. Sascha was worried sick about her mother although she made an effort not to let it show to Naya, their daughter. And Vaughn was always one heartbeat away from snapping since he had to watch his mate suffer under the onslaught of partial visions of doom for her race.

The meeting with SnowDancer and the Councilors had finally given them something to dig into and Dorian had done his best to find out about a Councilor they hadn't paid much interest so far. They'd been busy enough with Henry Scott and Pure Psy until lately. Now Dorian had come by to share what he'd found so they could talk it over before they reported back to the wolves.

"Ok, I had to patch this together from various sources, but I think I have a picture now," the Sentinel began while he unpacked his laptop in the living area Lucas' and Sascha's aerie. Luc's mate settled with them in one of the big cushions, holding a merrily babbling toddler.

"The Krychek family group was dealing in biotechnology back in the 1970s. KRYONIK was only the cryonic-subsidiary. The main corporation run by the family was called KRYTECH. – Very creative choice of name. Man! Psy were lame even before Silence."

"Hm, I think I'll tell that to your mate," Sascha laughed.

"Hey you know the clever girls who mated leopards are always excluded!" he replied laughing, reaching out to stroke her knee affectionately. Sascha and Ashaya as well as Faith had been great enrichments to the pack and their mate's lives.

Lucas had to smile as well but said: "Stop flirting with my mate and go on. I have a feeling it will get more interesting."

"I bet you it will! I could unearth a few things from human sources because KRYTECH was working with humans a lot. They didn't have any strong psychic powers among them, so they couldn't afford to trust their brethren. They had no abilities above midrange for generations but they had some biotechnological knowledge and they were ambitious. There were rumors that they were collecting DNA samples of those Psy who had extraordinary powers to combine them and breed powerful Psy in their genetic lines."

Dorian flipped through various folders pulling up a newspaper page that looked like it had been scanned from a printed version. There is this article: It accuses the company of illegal experiments… here … and further down it says: 'seems they are trying to buy strong genes to add to their pool'. They have never been successful as far as I could discover." But the article led me to another source. He opened another document. "This is a speculative list of Psy the journalist thought KRYTECH approached."

"I know a lot of these names. They were all well-known Psy with unique or very strong abilities, mostly cardinals," Sascha mused. "What do the 'ref.' and '?' behind the names mean?"

"The journalist must've had access to the communication of the company. He added 'ref.' whenever he ascertained they refused. The question marks indicate…"

That moment Lucas surprised exclamation interrupted him. "Whoa! Zaid Adelaja is on that list!"

"Yep, and he has a question mark," Dorian emphasized. Then he opened two pictures on the screen. One showed Zaid Adelaja, the other Kaleb Krychek. "Eldridge sees a resemblance between the two."

"I see a slight one. Could be coincidence." Lucas leaned forward to study the screen more intently. "But I have no idea how this genetic stuff works. Has Ashaya seen this?" Dorians Psy mate was a brilliant scientist and M-Psy who could analyze living matter down to DNA-level.

"Said she is no physiognomist either. But if they secretly continued the experiments and created a viable embryo it might carry some physical resemblance to the gene-donor."

Lucas blew out a long breath. "And what are we gonna do with that now?"

"I could ask my mother…" Sascha began, unsure if that would be the right way to proceed.

"Wait, before you decide. There's more: I also tackled the insanity issue. And here we come to the point where I left any legal ground: I dug up the old medical files of the family group. It is really lucky they were so involved with humans at one point. The files were digitalized for research purposes and kept on the server of a private university. That's one dark family! And I'm focusing to the really interesting stuff only. The first generation after the alleged genetic experiments seemed to have been normal, midrange Psy with slight anomalies in mental stability. But in the second generation those anomalies increased. And there were apparently cumulative genetic diseases in the family, at least for the last three generations."

"Oh my god! They did live trials within their family line?" Sascha gasped. She hadn't been surprised that some Psy had tried to optimize their genomes. But being arrogant enough to think one could manipulate nature that easily and being cruel enough to try it on one's own children… Well really what had she expected?

"Obviously yes, and more than one. They must have been so eager they manipulated the offspring of an entire generation. They probably stopped after the first generation was normal but without the intended abilities. And payoff only came with the following generations. But I'd say we found the reason the line faded." Dorian continued while Lucas slid closer to his mate pulling her and the baby into a tight reassuring embrace. Although she had lived most of her life among them, Sascha reacted always strongly to learning new atrocities her former people committed. "It looks as if the last heir got to money somehow almost thirty years and finally closed the run-down business. Then he – Well... it looks like he just vanished. Officially he didn't have any children. But his possessions weren't seized by the Council as you'd expect in such a case but forwarded to Kaleb Krychek. So there must be a link I couldn't find."

"How come no one else ever dug that up?"

"Well, as I said: this kind of information is not exactly broadcasted on NewsNet and technically there isn't much to notice: A Psy inherits a run-down corporation and some money. He builds it up in a different way, creates a successful business empire. It only gets interesting when you know that Krychek – or respectively his family – had a supposedly dead scientist on ice for the last hundred years, before one of them turned into a notorious rebel, took her out and gave her to us."

"I have no idea what to do with this. We have to talk to the wolves – and probably your mother as well as Faith's father," Lucas stated pulling out his phone just as it started to ring. He answered promptly. "Hawke we were just…"

"Switch on NewsNet at once!" The other alpha barked into the phone.

"Why would I…"

"Just do it!" Lucas was about to tell Hawke where he could shove his commands, when he saw what flickered to life on Dorian's laptop screen. Of course the other changeling had heard Hawke and followed his curiosity at once. In front of them a perfectly prim Psy news anchor read out what the cannel hat titled 'breaking news' in red letters flashing across the screen. They listened in silence for a few minutes.

"Holy shit! I guess I have to take back what I just said about NewsNet not broadcasting something like that. – And what the hell is a reticulist?" Dorian bursted out.

"It's a scientist for the PsyNet," Sascha answered, her voice gentle, her face drawn in a way that told him she was already thinking things through. Lucas too seemed surprised when she didn't react as shocked as expected. Then again, she was the daughter of a Councilor. She was probably the only one besides Faith who could explain what the hell currently went on in the Psy world.


	54. Chapter 54

**NewsNet broadcast 12.05.2082**

_"__Even though the political situation has become somewhat tensed, we advise caution. Any issues concerning the Silence Protocol are being monitored closely by our top scientists. And the continuation of the Protocol is still considered the responsible course of action. _

_It would be irrational and precipitate to side with those forces that are striving to destabilize conditions further – even if they seem to come from formerly respectable members of our society. It should be remembered that two Councilors have ties to the changeling races that surmount any sensible business relationship. And another Councilor causes concern with his suddenly erratic actions. Being financially successful and having risen to Council ranks at an exceptionally young age from a seemingly ordinary family group, Kaleb Krychek has been a favorite of the populace for some years. According to his family history this story of success might yet lead to an unpleasant outcome. _

_A conscientious NewsNet reporter discovered that the Krychek family has a history of high insanity and violence rates that almost led to the termination of the family line fifty years ago. The journalist, who – for obvious reasons – likes to stay anonymous, has also been able to verify that the mental stability problems in the genetic line continue to this day. A direct relative of Councilor Krychek is at the time internalized in a facility in St. Petersburg specialized on mental disorders of the most serious kind. Unfortunately the subject is unfit for an interview._

_The deterioration of their genetic line can be directly linked to genetic experiments they conducted within the family and without Council authorization. The experiments led to an inability to adopt the Silence Protocol and thus made the entire genetic line a danger to public safety. But not only did they acquire some of the samples illegally; but after their first failed experiments the family repeatedly circumvented prohibition of procreation and passed on their defective genes. _

_According to leading reticulists the compromised genes may express in a way that causes trouble for our Net structure as well as producing data patterns that may even bleed over to perceptive minds, causing their otherwise perfectly functioning Silence Protocol to falter. Major anchors in the regions Councilor Krychek is frequenting reported a decline in stability directly correlated to the proximity of said individual."_

* * *

**Chapter 54**

Leo could sense the old man inside his head. He felt the iron claws that had worked deep into his neural network, taking over everything he was: Every movement, every sensory perception. He'd been trained not to feel, had been informed, that his progress in the Silence Protocol was extraordinary. But right now the strength of his wanting that man out of his head was bordering very hard on emotion. Still it wasn't strong enough. He had to watch helplessly while another mind took control of his body and his every thought.

The intruder himself was so heavily shielded he had never seen anything alike in eight years of Arrow training. He had no chance to get even a glimpse inside the foreign mind. It wasn't necessary anyway. The intruder made no secret of his intentions: He wanted Leo's body and skill to kill. And even though he didn't feel, all Arrows knew the concept of cowardice. And cowards were not to be tolerated.

_Boy, I don't care what you think of me as long as you get the job done. _Ming's icy voice cut through his thoughts like a razor. That was the first and only time the intruder spoke directly to him.


	55. Chapter 55

**Chapter 55**

"So tell me about the grain," Alja said after a silent meal of nutrition bars. It had been a long and very busy day. To be correct it had been more close to two days of dealing with the PR disaster the NewNet broadcast had caused. So they hadn't talked much since they'd teleported to Kaleb's home, both needing food and sleep to keep functioning.

"The grain?" he asked looking up from the kitchen table where they'd demolished their rations. They were both still dressed in their work clothing, he in his suit, she in her uniform. But Kaleb had thrown his jacked over the back of his chair and rolled up his sleeves, while Alja had unbuttoned her blouse revealing the tank top she wore below. They could've been human, the scene looked so ordinary. But it wasn't. There was a tension in the air that had to discharge soon.

"Well, I don't believe a bit of this bullshit. But since Shoshanna isn't stupid and you're tensing up by the minute since the broadcast is out, there must be a grain of truth in it."

They had aired counter statement that claimed the accusations against Kaleb were unfounded and hinted that if certain people thought it necessary one could always make the medical conditions of _all_ Councilors an issue of public concern. That hint had been to Shoshanna alone. The public would of course be interested in any information on the highly reclusive Council that seemed to be coming apart at the seams. But Shoshanna would understand that it was a bad idea to dig deeper into this, since she'd have a suspicious medical record of her own, having once been implanted with a chip that would have made her the head of a hive mind had it worked.

Kaleb had had neglected seizing control of the media up to that point, because it hadn't been important. But of course he had been prepared. It had taken less than a few hours to take control over the broadcasting stations in his sector. His counter statement had been aired from those stations and distributed across various other channels of communication, among them the internet so it would reach all other sectors as well. And it had been received quite well. All in all the consequences could have been worse.

But they hadn't had time to talk about what was the truth in all of this.

Now Kaleb looked at Alja, saw how tired she looked. He probably didn't do much better. They both needed to recover, but they also needed to talk. They had so little time…

"Actually the part about me destabilizing the Anchors is the only part that's entirely made up," he said to her surprise. "My anchors are stable. Second only to the ones in Nikita's and Anthony's territory."

"What about that relative in the St. Petersburgh facility?" Alja asked with a slight shake of her head as if she couldn't believe any of it. His answer made her blood freeze.

"My father." He avoided looking at her not wanting to see her reaction. To his relief she caught herself as quickly as always.

"So he _is_ a victim of the genetic diseases in the family?" she asked cautiously not sure how to make this conversation any easier.

To her surprise Kaleb let out a sarcastic snort. "My father isn't even part of the Krychek genetic line. Among other things that was why no one found the connection earlier. His family tree was as clean as it could be. My ancestors always made certain to breed in only the best genes after the failed generation, trying to 'renaturalize' our genome. It was my mother who carried the tampered genes. She initially would have had the rights to me, but she succumbed to mental stability problems after my birth. She decided against rehabilitation." There was no need to explain it was a euphemism for suicide. Alja was Psy. All Psy understood and respected that choice in their brethren. "And my father sold me to that butcher Enrique as soon as he had legal custody after her death. He made a good living of it until I came for him."

"Even we don't sell our children." Alja replied somewhat confused.

"He signed over the rights to my education and parenting for a hefty sum of money. What would you call that?"

What had they become? Alja thought. Then again, she of all people should know what her race was capable of. Instead of responding she reached over the table for his hands. Physical contact might be distracting but she needed it and she could feel he did as well even if he wasn't yet used to perceiving it. He responded to the touch, stroking his thumbs across the backs of her hands. Finally he met her eyes and his features softened just a little. Only then did she continue questioning him "What I don't understand… if he wasn't genetically prone to insanity, then why is he…"

"Because _I_ put him in that state." Kaleb's eyes went dark again, a split second before his face did.

Alja didn't judge, she just looked thoughtful for a moment. "Was it revenge?"

"I didn't feel it then. But now…" He paused for a moment. Looking back at those decisions in the light of emotions was harder than it had been with cold logic. "I can no longer say it was only a means to get to his assets. Killing him would have been an easier and cleaner solution."

It was a hard thing to hear. But Alja knew it was necessary. Kaleb had been cold, ruthless all his life. He had to be to survive. Only time would tell if he was able to choose a different path if he was given the chance. Not letting go of his hands she stood up and walked around the small table urging him to turn and let her straddle him on his chair. "Thank you for your honesty," she said plainly.

_Honesty_ he thought. Yes he tried so hard to be honest. She should know all about him. She wanted to. And she hadn't run. _Why hadn't she?_ When she leaned forward to put her mouth on his he stopped her by pushing against her shoulders. "Can you not be at least a little scared?"

"Why would you want that?" She gave him a look of utter disbelief. Was this some kind of male pride thing?

"I don't. It just would be better for you."

"You think I don't understand who you are."

"You would be scared, if you did." Hadn't she proven him wrong? Why was that still gnawing at him so badly? Why was there still something that he had to get out?

"I knew who you were, even before I met you. The details I learned since then are unimportant. Because I also know who you can be." She thought of the episode, the NetMind had showed her, the one where Kaleb had saved the girl from the train crash. "I am no more scared of what you are than I am of any other Psy including myself." Suddenly it made her angry because she knew what this was about. "When will you let this go? I will never agree that you'd be better off Silent, no matter how much you push me with your goddamn guilt issues! You deserve to feel. Find another way to make up for your mistakes." She had hoped to get a reaction that was as explosive as hers. To her frustration Kaleb stayed absolutely calm, only pressing his hands down on her hips when, she would have jumped up. It infuriated her even more. But she stilled, as he began to speak.

"You're not entirely right about that. What I feel with you … I want you more than anything else. More than I ever wanted power. And I am egoistic enough that I won't let emotion go, in spite of my guilt. But I don't want to be the man I am with emotion. I don't think I should." Because that man made all the bad decisions. It was Alja who made the good ones.

"You never felt before. You don't even know who that man is!" she almost snarled at him. She was so annoyed that it took her a little too long to catch the messed up emotions her empathic senses received.

"I did feel as a child and I have a pretty good idea of the man that child would have turned into. Because every time I felt, I killed." Kaleb suddenly felt a little dizzy. He hadn't consciously thought of that time for decades. Why had he tried now? It was Alja, she made him want to tear himself open. He shouldn't let her.

"You said he didn't make you murder them before that last one."

Her voice sounded strangely hollow, was it her confusion or … Why was there an echo to her voice? "I …" he started, then hesitated.

Alja just stared at him. A few seconds he seemed totally lost. And it made her blood turn to ice, because Kaleb just didn't look lost. He was in control – always. Now those strange twisted emotions bled out of him, almost too faint to pick them up with her senses.

"I don't remember clearly. It was before the conditioning took hold. My thought patterns were erratic back then." He tried to get those patterns to coherency now. He tried to remember beyond the blocks he'd set himself.

"What you remember are probably accidents." It happened a lot with children who had strong offensive abilities. That was why Arrows were trained so early.

"You don't get it." For the first time he sounded a little desperate. "It wasn't my abilities spinning out of control. I decided to kill."

"Yes, Kaleb I get it.", she snapped back, impatience suddenly breaking through, blacking out everything else she might have, should have perceived at that moment. "I understand trauma: You'd rather see yourself as evil for the rest of eternity than admit even to yourself, that you were a helpless child and had no control over any aspect of the situation."

For a moment it seemed as if he would finally explode. Then he answered in a very calm voice.

"Then you also know I'm not ready to confront that. Not now, maybe not ever – but certainly not now, when our world is falling apart around us faster that we can rebuild it." He was struggling hard to push back whatever threatened to boil up from the depths of his mind.

"Maybe you're right, but I still won't stop pushing. Not even if it's the end of the world, because this is too important, you are too important."

Kaleb could sense the need in her. Her sky-fall eyes were gazing at him with an uncanny intensity, peeling away layer upon layer of emotional shielding, looking down right into the core of his soul, leaving no room for rejection.

"And yes I do understand: I see there is a chance that you turn into the most fucked up psychopath that ever walked this earth. Just like there's a chance I am too broken to heal the Net. And as you said this is a possibility we will simply ignore, because if that happens we're all dead anyway." She managed to sound secure, but inside her the pressure was building exponentially. What if they were both too damaged after all? Just a mirror of a race bound to tumble into insanity and death? _Not an option to explore_ she repeated to herself. And then desperation mixed with her urge to heal, had her do something she'd never have considered consciously: The projection just slipped out for a second – _trust me as I do you_.

"Ok. I'll admit you beat me with my own logic there." The words came out mechanical, something was wrong with his mind. What the hell was it? He felt her pushing, as if he could sense her emotions as well. He wanted to trust her, wanted to risk it. He opened up the lid on those memories a little more. But still, what was that thing? That voice, that grew louder? Only then he noted what it was that distracted his thoughts. In the back of his mind the gruesome voice of the monster hat resumed his chanting rhyme:

_Stop the blood, stop the heart,_

_Or just tear them apart._

_Make them mute, make them cease._

_When they're dead,_…

"STOP!" he screamed, his hands shooting up to clutch his head. As he realized what part of his mind he'd dug in, he desperately struggled to get out, slamming shut all the deadbolts, locking up all the doors on his way out.

Kaleb's eyes had turned completely black, as if he were exerting huge amounts of mental energy. The emotions Alja received from him were all jumbled up horror and excitement, dread and anger. She'd pushed him too far. And he had warned her. She just hadn't listened.

Shit!


	56. Chapter 56

**Chapter 56**

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to…" _No, don't panic! _She thought. _I can do this. I'm born for this._ But projection would only make a worse mess of the chaotic mix of feelings that were already there. She placed her hands over his as gently as possible trying to ease the pressure he put on his temples. Then she opened up and tried to take the emotional weight off of him. The impact hit her like a freight train. But she held on until it slowly dissolved.

"Hey, come back to me," she coaxed, peeling his hands off and starting to stroke through his messed up hair. "You don't have to go there again. Just stay with me."

She got a tired nod.

"It's ok now. Just come here." She leaned forward to kiss him, needing to feel him close. But he pulled back again. Then he slowly lifted his eyes and looked at her. He blinked once. Twice. His gaze becoming clearer each time. He was gaining back his focus fast – too fast.

"I'm alright now. I got it under control." But his gaze swept away from her.

"No, you don't. You're still so tense you're about to snap. You're just trying to close up to me again." She cupped his face in her hands, forcing him to look at her. "And I can't handle that. I need you to be with me, all of you. Don't you see that?"

"Yes, I know," he ground out between clenched teeth. It tore him to pieces that he couldn't give her what she needed, even more because of how much he needed her closeness too. "But I'm not good for you right now."

"Because you're angry?"

"I'm not angry." He really wasn't he realized. He just wanted. The glimpse of the memory had left him with an inexplicable need for something he could never have: To be close to Alja in a way that left no room for – anything else. No, that didn't feel sane at all. He'd have to fight it.

God, the man was stubborn! "Why not? I'm pushing you all the time. If you don't want that, why are you not angry?"

"Because it's my fault. I can't give you what you need." Finally some emotion entered his voice. He strangled it as soon as it broke through. He pushed her off of him and rose to walk away. "And I can't have this conversation now. I have to go meet Judd."

He'd told her all about the fellow rebel she had known as an Arrow – including the fact, that he was avoiding him right now, because he didn't know what to tell him, how much to trust him. "Bullshit!"

He turned around at the open double door that led to the almost unfurnished living area. "What?"

Oh, he tried to sound cold. But Alja knew he was anything but. "Don't act like you don't know the word. You didn't even react to Judd's calls. You're just trying to run away from this, from your emotions. Damn it! I thought you would have to be brought up to react with this … this male crap." Blunt frustration coated every word.

"I don't want to hurt you." He just stood there, in the doorway of that almost empty room, the fading light that fell through the window behind him casting deep shadows on his face.

"You'd never hurt me." She took a step closer.

"That might change, if I stay with you now."

"It will change for sure, if you leave now."

"Alja, that thing inside me you're so desperate to know about, it's bad." He didn't want to think about it. When he saw her, he just wanted to feel. Did she even know how beautiful she looked? Standing there with that expression of utter determination on her face. Ready to fight for the good in him he knew he'd lost.

"Then tell me exactly in what way that part of you wants to hurt me." No more dancing around the truth. If he was so sure he was evil inside, it was time to prove it.

She had him so churned up inside, he actually tried to listen to the monster. To his surprise it had gone silent since Alja had started to pull him into this irrational fight. It was another thing the monster didn't understand. Or did it just silently lay in wait for its prey?

Meanwhile Alja had gotten close enough to make out his face again. He looked exasperated now. She felt a little guilty about putting so much pressure on him, but she had the feeling if she let him go now, she'd lose him to the darkness inside. She had to confront that darkness if she wanted to keep him. And maybe it was good that he was so scared of it. It didn't leave her room to wonder if he might finally reveal something that would scare her too. His answer however was nothing she'd expected.

"I don't know," he admitted. And the next moment she found herself trapped against the doorframe by his body, his arms locked on the wood on either side of her head. He barely touched her but his face was so close his breath licked over her skin like a flame when he spoke. "I just want you so badly. The way I want to claim you, it's nothing good. I am so full of death and you – you're life."

"Do you want to take that life?" Her voice sounded hoarse. Her heart raced. She had to know. She couldn't go back now. Worse, she wasn't sure if she'd run even if his answer was 'yes'.

But all he wanted was to feel her under his body, naked, hot and full of life. He wanted to have her, to possess her more than anything, but there was also something obscure and consuming about his need, something he didn't think belonged between them. And for the first time his feelings for Alja scared him. "No. But I want to own that life, make it mine… That doesn't even make sense…" His hands trembled on the wood beside her head.

"Yes it does." He wanted her life, just as bad as she wanted his darkness. She could sense the intense desire emanating from him. But it didn't scare her. It drew her – in a way that made it impossible to stop pressuring him now. She felt the energy of it whirl beyond the surface, dark, dangerous and so seducing. It was the thing he'd held back, the thing he tried to hide by not letting go of his maddening control, even when they shared their most intimate moments. She wanted to feel that side of him. That he kept it locked up infuriated her. "Tell me what you want!" she breathed into his ear.

He shuddered at her sensual demand. Ever since he'd had his first taste of her, fantasies of what he wanted to do with her unraveled in his mind as if to catch up with the years of abstinence. Some of them were wrong in more than one way, yet a single thought of them instantly got him hard. And then the pictures flooded into his mind: Alja on her hands and knees. Her hips raised high so her flushed, pink folds were deliciously exposed, as he held her in place his fingers digging deep into the flesh of her hips and butt. Alja tied spread legged to his bed, helplessly bucking in her restrains as he ravaged her breasts and her sex with his mouth. And then endless imaginations of how he'd drive his cock, swollen to painful hardness, into the soft heat of her to find release.

"Tell me!" she demanded again.

And he did.

Her breath hitched as he unfolded the images before her, his lips brushing her ear, his voice harsh and trembling from the control he had to exert not to follow up at once on the cravings he told her about. But when he drew back to look at her it wasn't shock on her face. It was unveiled lust and desire.

"All of this because of some kinky fantasies?" The words slipped out without thought, her mind clouded by the sexual heat his admissions had stoked.

"No Alja!" His voice was brutal. But the violence in it wasn't directed at her. It was directed at his own impulses. "I'm not some naïve human or changeling, who thinks these – practices are an exciting little variation of sex or sensual experiments. I grew up with a very different kind of experiments and I should not feel anything but horror, thinking of a woman – thinking of _you_ tied up, helpless and at my mercy."

"What if I don't care?" He'd let her get a glimpse of the wild passion that raged inside him. And she wanted to unleash that passion, all of it. "What if I want it?" She deliberately licked her lips, caught her lower lip between her teeth and released it slowly. She was so annoyed by his control, so hot from the imaginations he'd shared, that she was hell-bent on making him lose it now and deal with the consequences later.

Kaleb stared at her, lost for words, still fighting to resist. She held his gaze. He looked away. She lifted her hands to cup his face, to force his eyes back at her. But before she could touch him he gripped her wrists and turned her around so she faced the doorframe. The next moment her blouse was yanked down her arms. But he didn't pull it off. He twisted and gripped the fabric at her elbows, effectively immobilizing her arms behind her back.

"Do you want this? Violence?" His voice was low and dangerous.

"Do you want to cause me pain?" She asked right back. Because it still didn't feel like it. He held her firmly in place but he hadn't twisted her arms any way that might have hurt. And she knew from sparring with him that he could've done it.

She tried to turn.

He tightened the grip on her blouse with one hand, pushed her against the doorframe with the other – hard, but not hard enough to bruise. Instead she could now feel the hard length of him pressing against her backside. Heat shot through her body. Breathing in her breasts pressed against the cool, smooth wood of the doorframe. This might be dangerous but it was the most exciting experience of her life.

She managed to twist around enough so he could see her eyes again. Still there was no fear in them. Instead the trembling stars in them glowed with a passion that dared him to continue.

"I want to give you so much pleasure it feels like pain." The words tore out of him in a growl. He wanted her to be as helpless as he was. He wanted her to surrender to him the way she made him surrender to her right now, a little more with each second he couldn't make himself pull away from her, with each inch those deep eyes where drawing him in. He wrapped his free hand around her throat, leaned forward and demanded an openmouthed kiss. When she struggled again he nipped hard at her lower lip. She stilled, breathless. "I want you unable to stop me from doing anything I want, unable to writhe away as I touch you." He spoke the words against her lips, licking out over the hurt his teeth had caused. "I want to suck on you between your legs, take bites out of your breasts and maybe other places. I want to touch you, kiss you, lick you, until you scream my name again." As she'd done that first time in the cabin.

And just as she'd done back then she answered him now: "Then don't stop!"

But he had to.

He let her go so fast she stumbled and had to brace herself on the wood in front of her with her newly freed arms.

Kaleb knew he was done for the moment she turned. She was panting hard, her whole presence so filled with lust it was visible on her skin: Her cheeks flushed, sweat gleaming on her upper lip and on the delicious curves that vanished all too soon inside her tank top. As if he hadn't simply talked to her but touched her most intimate places.

But that was exactly what he had done. He _had_ touched the most private and also most sensitive part of her: Her mind. And there was no mischief in her eyes now, just blatant, demanding provocation. She was so aroused it was torture not to have him touching her. Not breaking eye contact for fear of letting him slip away again, she let the blouse slide off her arms, stripped off her tank top, then her bra.

Kaleb felt mesmerized by her just like he had on that first night in the mountains, when he'd tried so hard to resist the urge to touch her. _We both know you're not gonna deliver,_ she'd said. And she'd been right at the time. But now? There was no Silence, no dissonance, no part of his conditioning left to hold him back. Only his iron control that was crumbling to dust beyond his care.

And she knew.

He could sense it, because she suddenly stopped pushing as hard as she had the whole time. Without a word she stepped closer, very slowly and lifted her hands to his collar. The movement squeezed her breasts together, shaping them in a way that made it impossible to look away. When she unbuttoned his shirt she touched him so gently, it was a soft, feminine brand every time her fingertips brushed his naked skin. And when she stroked her hands down his arms to push off the shirt it felt so careful it was almost non-sexual. She was soothing him. Maybe he'd be able to scrape his control back together after all. But she followed him, when he took another step back – and found himself stopped by the opposite side of the broad doorframe behind him. And in front of him Alja stood, half naked, beautiful, wrapping him in her wildflowers and rain scent, a goddess radiating sheer, vibrant life.

Alja could sense it better now, the dark, electric energy swirling behind the thin – oh so thin layer of steely control Kaleb still wore over the wildness that lived inside him. When she opened his belt she saw him fisting his hands beside his body, still trying to restrain himself. But there was an edge of anticipation to his gaze.

He wouldn't stop her.

Good, because she wouldn't let him either. That decision had been made the day she walked into his office, maybe even before. She knew that now. She cupped his face in her hands one last time, pressed the softest kiss on his lips.

Then she let her hands slide down the sides of his body hooking her fingers into the waistband of his pants and pulled them down while she gracefully slid down on her haunches. All the time her gaze stayed locked with his, holding him hostage to whatever she did to him.

He felt the relief when his cock was released from the confines of clothing, all doubt blocked out by those gentle, mesmerizing sky-fall eyes. They filled with a mischievous glint a second before she did something he hadn't expected. In a single fluent move she dropped from her haunches to her knees and sucked him into her mouth.

He couldn't help but gasp out at the sudden shock of sensation, the luscious, wet heat between her lips sent through him. His hands slammed back against the doorframe, his fingers curling around its edges. Her hands came around behind his thighs, her breasts pressing against the front of them.

She drew back looking up at him with huge eyes, until she barely touched the tip of him with her lips. Then she slid forward again, excruciatingly slow.

"Harder!" The harsh command escaped without volition.

And she obeyed.

She kept sliding her mouth over him in a hard, fast rhythm just to slow it down after a few moments and start exploring him with her tongue in between the soft, sucking motion. Then she sped up her movements once more. How had he ever thought he knew insanity? Because he was pretty sure he was going insane right now. She made him.

Alja loved how he tasted, how he felt: hard steel under velvet smooth skin. And it filled her with silent triumph that the muscles of his thighs tensed under her hands; that she could feel him tremble slightly, hear his breathing that had become beyond ragged.

All of a sudden his hand fisted in a steel grip around her nape, pulling her of off him. And the next thing she knew, she lay flat on her front in the middle of the room, a hot, heavily muscled body pinning her down.

"You want to make me lose control? Didn't I just tell you I like to be _in_ control?" But his voice no longer sounded like he had his impulses in a stranglehold that barely allowed him to speak. It sounded clear, sharp, and full of sensual provocation. The dark passion was out to play.

She grinned, tried to push him off. She couldn't move.

With some kind of really mean move he had somehow managed to get her to the floor and straddle her without even removing his pants that still hung on his ankles, now stretching across her legs so she couldn't move them. He braced himself on his elbows on either side of her, caging her with his body. His erection was pressing against her still fully clothed behind, in stark, relentless demand. Fuck! She couldn't wait to have him inside her. She pushed back against him, barely able to lift her hips.

But it was enough for Kaleb to slide a hand under them and open the fly of her pants.

Cold air on her back as he sat up to pull them down enough to reveal the full mounds of her butt. She attempted to lift her upper body and brace herself on her elbows and was pushed down by a strong, hot hand between her shoulder blades. Her cry of protest turned into a needy moan. She felt his weight on her thighs and on the hand holding her down. But no other part of him touched her. It was sweet erotic torment. She stilled in anticipation and surrender.

Finally, Kaleb stopped questioning why she didn't stop him, his thoughts lost in the sensation of having her where he wanted her, soft, yielding, tamed. Only her ribs moved with the fast, uneven rhythm of her breath under his unrelenting hand. He left it there while sliding the other hand down her side, cupping one buttock before slipping his fingers between her legs – far enough to tease the bundle of nerves that threatened to explode with sensation any second.

Her spine bucked.

He withdrew his hand slowly. On the way back he circled her entrance with the tip of a finger, then dipped inside. Her heat and wetness were an invitation that got harder and harder to resist.

Barely able to move Alja raised her hips as far as possible to give him better access. She was almost ashamed how bad she wanted him and how little she could stay in control even if she tried as hard as she just had.

"Tell me you want this!" It was hardly more than a trembling groan. He was no longer in control either.

"I want it." No hesitation.

"Tell me you're mine."

She'd tell him whatever he wanted, promise him anything, if he only let her feel that searing energy he'd held back until they both couldn't think straight. "I'm yours," she gasped out. "Please."

His hands lifted off her, just to be replaced by the weight his body again. "Say that again." A hot whisper in her ear. The scent of the upcoming thunderstorm sizzling in the air around her.

She only gave him a greedy sound, trying to rub herself against his cock.

He lifted his hips, slid the length of his erection along the cleft of her buttocks. Once. Twice. Stopping just out of reach, when she angled her hips to take him in. It drove her insane. "Kaleb, please."

She begged, his tough, strong Alja, who would only ever yield for him. Her surrender was the most precious gift. Finally he thrust into her and was rewarded with her cry of relief as she shattered around him, her muscles spasming, squeezing him tight. And the last thread of control snapped. He started pounding into her fast and hard.

Alja's relief didn't last. The wave of pleasure crested and was whipped up again before it could even start to ebb away. Again she tried to change her position, just a little to lessen the sensual impact of his movements. It didn't work.

Kaleb looked down at her now sweat coated body, saw the sleek muscles of her back move under her soft skin like liquid as she helplessly writhed under him. He wanted to taste. So he let his mouth trail across her back, closed his teeth over the little knots her muscles formed, until they softened up, each one with a deep, pleading moan from her chest. He wanted to drown in that sound.

Another shock of pleasure arched through her body, shattering her thoughts. And it was just too much: The heat of Kaleb's wet, biting kisses on her back and shoulders, the sweet abrasion of the carpet rasping over her already sensitized nipples. Instinct was all she had left to react with. She managed to reach back with one arm, her hand landing on his thigh. His muscles flexed under sweat slick skin as he continued to push into her. She clawed into his flesh not knowing if she wanted him to go slower or faster. Probably both. It didn't matter anyway. Her hand was pulled off and both her wrists placed beside her head, shackled in an iron hold – all while he never stopped slamming in and out of her in that maddening rhythm, the tip of his erection sliding again and again over the most sensitive places inside her, not allowing her to come down. Her body started to convulse as wave after wave of pleasure gripped her hard and swamped her with sensation.

And somewhere beyond that all-consuming passion it dawned on her that maybe, just maybe she'd unleashed a little more than she could handle. But it was too late to think now and after all it was all she ever wanted: Scorching heat engulfing both of them, no barriers left between them, she felt finally whole. So she surrendered, let the greedy whimpers flow from her throat, and let go of the psychic hold she had over the overwhelming sensations.

The full force of Alja's desire crashed into Kaleb without warning when she lost grip on her projective abilities.

Suddenly a wave of purest pleasure washed over him, laced with the desire to fully surrender, to give up all control. It submerged him in this need, leaving no room for thought or doubt. There could be nothing left between them, but this passion. He drove into her even harder, losing himself in the welcoming, wet heat of her. His Tk wrapped around her shields as if it were begging her to let him dive into them again. It didn't break through but somehow her shields let him feel her body under his psychic touch, so soft, so hot, so – his. _Mine. All mine._ The single primitive thought was the last thing on his mind when he succumbed to vehemence of passion. His breath turned into a single strangled groan as the orgasm tore through him. His head dropped to her nape and he bit down hard on the slope between her neck and shoulder in a primal urge to mark her.

The short spike of pain mingled with endless pleasure, sent a bolt of pure heat right down to her core, where she felt him fill her up thick and hard. And just when she'd thought Kaleb had wrung every drop of pleasure from her over-sensitized body she exploded with it. A blazing sensation ripped from the overheated space between her thighs to grip her whole body. And finally she let herself sink into the sweet bliss of Kaleb's darkness pulling her under.

* * *

Alja came to with a sensation of something trembling on her skin. She lay on her side on the lush, soft carpet and felt absolutely sated, her body heavy and limp. Kaleb's body heat wrapped around her as he held her close, his arms wrapped around her so gently it was almost too tender after the onslaught of sensation she'd just experienced. The trembling was his hand softly caressing her shoulder, her upper arm, her waist.

And then there was the softest telepathic whisper brushing against her mind.

_Alja?_

"Mhh." _Mhh._ She answered on both planes simultaneously.

_Alja. _Relief in his tone.

"Oh…oops…" she mumbled, followed by a startled and a little dirty laugh. "I passed out!"

Then she wriggled in his arms to turn towards him. He let her at once but looked at her with an expression of utter wonder, while she just pillowed her head on his arm and cuddled close as if everything was perfectly normal.

"I hurt you." His voice was a rasp. "You wanted it." The two statements dropped from his lips as if they were completely unconnected. As if he didn't even understand them.

She was still dizzy and a little shaky from the pleasure that had coursed through her body and overloaded as well as oversensitized pretty much every nerve ending from her hair roots to her toes. "No, you didn't. And yes I did," she said, lazily snuggling her head to his chest.

He pushed at her shoulders – oh so gently – but he had to make her see. "Alja, look at your wrists." He took the arm she'd wrapped around him and held it in front of her face. Dark red bands wrapped around the wrist, where he'd pinned it to the floor.

She was surprised at how hard he must have held her but not shocked.

But Kaleb was. "I bruised you."

"Those will probably fade within a few hours. I get worse in training every day." She rested her head on his bicep again but nudged his nose with hers affectionately.

"This was not fighting. This was supposed to be about pleasure." Still there was confusion in his eyes.

"It was." Alja still struggled to get her thoughts back together. Hadn't he felt what had passed between them? How could he still worry?

"And this?" He lightly circled a finger around the bite-mark he'd left on her shoulder, not daring to touch the marred skin itself. "This will turn into a hematoma."

He was right. The skin felt tender. But hematoma? Seriously? She giggled.

Kaleb understood that Alja didn't seem to mind at all. However he didn't understand why. And was she rolling her eyes at him? He wasn't as easily reconciled to what he'd done. In his head the image of red marks on Alja's skin connected to those of the countless women who'd been bound by his psychopathic teacher. And worse, a part of him relished the savage mark his teeth had caused. "It must've hurt you..." Desperation had made its way into his words.

"I didn't even feel it," she interrupted, not wanting his guilt to ruin her perfect moment of satisfaction. But he'd been honest with her, so she would too. She lifted her eyes so she could look directly into his. "No, you know what? I won't lie to you. I did feel it. I felt the pain. And I liked it. Maybe after being numb for so many years, pain is just another sensation I am glad to be able to feel." Eyes skating away, she added. "Or maybe it's just how I am."

Kaleb wanted to say something but was lost for words. He didn't know what to feel. He'd never experienced such pleasure before, had never felt as contented and close to Alja and the beautiful life she represented. The raging need in him was finally assuaged. And yes, he had never felt as stable as right in that moment. But the marks on her skin…

Her words broke his thoughts. "You didn't hurt me. Not in any way that mattered." A gentle hand stroking the side of his face. She looked at him solemnly until the mischief in her eyes broke through again. "What kind of double standard is that anyway? I mean, have you looked at your back lately?" She'd scratched him hard, whenever she'd gotten a hold of him during the last couple of times they'd been intimate. "And I'm pretty sure I got you bad on your thigh this ti… Oh shit, your thigh!"

When she looked down, she saw that the leg he'd turned up, bore jagged marks of her nails, filled with red. She had drawn blood. Enough to have it well up in little drops from his skin. Her expression turned horrified for a moment, before she shrugged and grinned again. "Guess that makes us even at last."

"So you weren't trying to make me stop?" He'd been almost sure that must've been the reason. She'd never scratched _this_ hard before. He hadn't even had the time to consider what it meant that he had liked it, too.

"Not exactly no. And believe me, you would have known..." she insisted dryly.

Why was she blushing? He raised his eyebrows in question.

"If you'd done anything I didn't like, I would've _let_ you know." A little frustrated and flushing even deeper she added. "As it is, I couldn't even _not_ show you, how much I liked it."

Finally he understood. "You lost control on the projection?" Interesting.

"Yeah, turns out you're not the only one, whose powers go haywire with intense pleasure," she admitted. "Nice decoration by the way." She nodded at the perfect blackened circle, the size of her shield radius that had been singed into the carpet around them. She'd missed the sparks this time, but obviously they had been there again, when his powers crashed into her shields.

"I thought it was the desire of the – the thing inside me, that wanted to tear down all your shields just to…"

"…just to be closer, even if it caused a little pain? No, that was me," she finished his sentence.

That was why it had felt so right, so good he hadn't even considered stopping. "I understand."

But she wanted to be sure, he really did. "This has nothing to do with the kind of madness that has cost our race so much. If anything it's a way to cope with it." And it was true. For the first time in days, maybe ever the tension on both of them had loosened. "Maybe this is what we have to admit ourselves to feel, if we want to be free from Silence. If it wasn't a little scary, it wouldn't have made us run for Silence in the first place. Even the pain: we both know, it will always be a part of us. Maybe that is because of what we've suffered in the past, maybe not. But it is who we are _now_. It doesn't make us broken. It makes us whole, together. This is only between us and the past has no place here."

"I really like your logic." Finally a slight smile touched his lips as he started to brush loose strands of her hair out of her face. "Especially if it allows me to do all those things with you."

"And it gets me a smile that even I would kill for," she whispered amazed at the lightness on his features she'd never seen on them before.

"But you'll never have to. With you I can be like that." With her it was easy to let that smile fill his face. "I don't know how you do it. But the truth is: You make me good, Alja."

"You are good. You just refuse to see. But I see it. And I will fight for it no matter the cost."

He should've seen it then, in the way her eyes calmed, when she spoke the words, in the way the stars in them stilled perfectly for the first time since he knew her, how determined she had become on this. As if it was more important than anything else. But he was just – happy. For the first time in his life there was neither ice nor darker emotions clouding that feeling. It could make a man lose himself.

And that was when he knew he'd been wrong, when he'd thought Alja was designed to oppose him. With her shields and the ability to make him feel what she felt, she was his perfect match. He'd never have to fear that he'd hurt her accidentally or even willingly. Alja was neither predator nor prey. She was something else entirely. She was made to find the goodness that was left in her people. She was the only one left who could to revive emotion in the coldest and darkest places of the Net – who else would be able to find good in him? What better place was there to start, than with him? It was where she belonged – with him. And he knew he could trust her, even with the thing he called the monster.


	57. Chapter 57

**Chapter 57**

"How is Alice?" Judd asked Lara as he entered the infirmary.

"I thought she was getting better and at least physically she is. She can walk a little and dress by herself now. But since she read that file, she seems upset. I don't think she remembers everything. She still seems confused but she's crying a lot and she's trying to hide it."

"So she hasn't said any more about what she meant, when she read the file?" Judd had hoped he might get some more information about the past of the Krychek family from Lara's patient, since all his other sources had turned up dry.

"I'm not sure whether she cannot or doesn't want to say. Maybe the shock of awakening so far beyond her time wears off and the impact of the emotions finally hit. I really don't know. I called Sascha. She's coming over tonight."

"Maybe I can talk to her. She seems to have some connection to me." He had been the first to talk to her after she awoke. And she'd recognized him as an Arrow. Somewhere locked inside that brilliant scientist's mind there must be more knowledge about the beginnings of Silence and the connection to Kaleb's family.

"But don't push her. Leave her alone as soon as she starts to act stressed," the healer instructed.

As he entered her room, Alice greeted him with the saddest smile he'd ever seen.

"Ah, the former Arrow." At once tears threatened to spill from her eyes. "You remind me so much of him, just like that Krychek descendant… that Councilor." She shook her head in desperate disbelief. "It should not be…"

She was still speaking jerkily, her sentences incomplete, disjointed. But Judd could see this was not disorientation or any other aftereffect of her cryonic state. She was deeply shaken, emotionally at breaking point. "You remembered something." Something that knocked all the joyous scientific curiosity of the last weeks right out of her.

"And I wish I hadn't. All of it is just so… This world turned out so wrong. Why wouldn't he listen?"

"Who wouldn't listen, Alice?" Judd tried to sound as gentle as he could. Maybe he should wait for Sascha. The empath would be better at this.

"None of them wanted to listen to a human. But in the end it was him – _Zaid_." She spoke the name of the first Arrow and fiercest defender of the Silence Protocol with a shuddering longing. "He said they'd be after me, but that he knew a way to protect me – forever. But he shouldn't have. I would rather have gone with him than… than this. But he couldn't understand it anymore. He'd turned so cold. And he sold himself so they could create their aberration."

So she knew something after all. "You're talking about the Krychek family. They were trying to enhance their abilities via genetic modeling."

"Enhance? They were cutting the genome of a monster out of every strand of powerful Psy DNA they could find."

Alice got increasingly agitated but her mind seemed exceptionally clear today. So he decided to try for just a little more. "How do you know about the experiments?"

"I…" She hesitated as if she was trying to find a memory she couldn't yet access. "I think I was working for them. They funded my research on the X-Psy… I did what I could to stop it, when I found out what they needed my research for. That's why I told him... Oh dear God _I _told him! _I _gave him the idea, that his DNA might be valuable to them." She sobbed now, tears trailing down her face.

"Judd get out!" Lara hissed from the doorway.

He obeyed at once, realizing he might have pushed Alice too far already. As he left, he heard her whisper: "Please don't let them have found an X."


	58. Chapter 58

**Chapter 58**

Alja stepped out on the patio of Kaleb's home still rubbing the towel through her wet hair. The night air was crisp but after the heat of their love making and the steaming shower afterwards she welcomed the cooling breeze. She had put on only a pair of underpants and one of Kaleb's shirts. She'd seen a character in a human movie do it once and was happy and jaunty enough to try it out. She came to a halt at the edge of the railingless platform looking down into the gorge that no longer looked so frightening.

Kaleb watched Alja through the open door, his heart flowing over with so much warmth he might have believed himself an empath. Only some part of his mind registered, he was probably just drunk on hormones right now. He told that part to shut up and called out to Alja instead. "Hey what am I supposed to wear if you're stealing my clothes?"

"Oh, I like you just fine as you are. Although for all I care, you could lose those as well," she answered, turning around and pointing at the flowing martial arts pants that were currently the only thing he wore. And then she smiled his favorite mischievous smile. She looked so perfect against the starry night-sky it took his breath away.

And suddenly he knew he wouldn't be allowed to keep her. Something this good just didn't happen. The realization sent a shock through him and made his blood roar in his ears. He took a deep breath and headed out towards her. He just had to hold her and the panic would go away. But as he stepped outside the humming in his ears grew even louder.

_Stealth craft!_

The thought shot through his mind the same moment Alja's head turned up and the same moment the bodies started to drop down in front of him. Bodies clad in black combat uniforms – only they were oddly small.

Alja hadn't sensed their minds closing in. But she'd felt a slight emotional pressure she couldn't quite place, just before she heard the quiet hum of machines above her. And the next thing she saw were the children. Arrow children, all heavily armed and opening fire the moment their feet hit the floor. But their bullets never hit their targets, because at the same second they were all thrown out of balance by a cutting whip of Tk. "Kaleb no!" she screamed, instinctively throwing her shields over the children just as the second telekinetic attack hit. It would have been lethal.

* * *

Leo fought as hard as he could. He didn't want to pull the trigger. His finger would do it eventually. The programming in his mind screamed _aim to kill_ over and over. He struggled. There must be something he could use, something in the forbidden part of his mind. He remembered a picture he had once seen in the window of a human art shop. It was forbidden because art was emotional. The painting was. It had shown a woman who held her heart out at the viewer. She had held her heart in her hand. Not inside the body! The heart is outside the body! Leo remembered the picture, as hard as he could. It wouldn't fool the programming. It wouldn't be enough. It had to. His finger pulled harder. The bullet flew.

* * *

Kaleb heard the single shot, just as he realized what Alja had done with her shields.

Alja didn't move.

She didn't even see the weapon, her training failing entirely as she looked into the strained, anxious face of the boy who had already gotten back up to a kneeling position after Kaleb's first Tk-attack. Sweat was running down his temples, fear reflecting in his big eyes. – A child. – He'd sent a child. – She felt the impact of the bullet before she heard the sound. And everything seemed to go slow motion. Her body was lifted off the floor and backwards into the air. She was floating endlessly, weightlessly. And then she was sinking again. But not towards the floor, because where she would land, there was no floor – not for two hundred feet at least.

Kaleb watched Alja being thrown off the edge and reached out with telekinetic arms – they slid softly off the waterfall of her shields, her body slipping through his mental fingers. T was true, he could never hurt her with Tk, but he couldn't hold her in either. Without a second thought he teleported into midair into the gorge right below her.

Alja's world had shattered into unconnected sensations: Pain under her left collarbone. Ribs splintered. Then more pain spearing through her chest. A burning sensation behind her shoulder blade. Darkness above her, a field of stars just like the Net. Gravity, sound, light, everything had stopped or maybe her mind had just overloaded. Then strong arms closed around her from behind.

_Alja shields!_

It was a telepathic slap hard enough to make her react. _Kaleb!_ She retracted her shields just as she finally felt the pull of gravity again. A split second too late. The air was knocked out of her and a nasty crunching noise filled the suddenly silent night air. But it weren't _her_ bones that had been crushed against the jagged rocks at the bottom of the abyss.

* * *

**1975**

The tall man stood in the deserted experimental chamber. He had to do this, had to speak one last time to the woman who could no longer hear him. No one would interrupt him. No one from the lab was left, because one more brilliant mind had succumbed to the horror that tortured his race. But all of this would end now. They had found a way out. And he would make sure they took it.

"I am sorry," he started, his voice devoid of any warmth. "At least I would be if I still could. But then I would never be able to do what has to be done. Instead I would wish that things were different, that we had a chance. It would kill us both and throw the world into chaos. We need the altered Mercury-Program, we need Silence. There is no other way of saving us now. And I know you would never understand that. You still think your research and your beautiful ideas will somehow lead to our salvation. But that chance is gone, just like ours. It would only be your death. If I had met you earlier, maybe my life would have turned out different; maybe all of this would be different. And I want you to have a second chance for it to be. Someday we will be ready to hear all the solutions you have to offer. I know you would want that. You would still want to help us, even after all I have done. Until then, you will be safe here. I paid them well." And the price he'd paid for her safety was just another thing she would have hated him for. Zaid took a step forward, placing his hand on the cold glass of the cryonic coffin, ignoring the painful spikes of the dissonance one last time. "I can't feel now. But I'll remember. I will remember for the rest of my life that I have loved you more than anything in this world. And that is why I have to let you go. Goodbye Alice."


	59. Chapter 59

**Chapter 59**

Hawke was in the middle of a meeting with the lieutenants, when the woman crashed into the table right in front of Judd. It took him half a second to realize she was Psy and a cardinal. Claws out, he jumped at her throat, aiming for a kill. An unknown Psy right inside the den meant killing first and asking questions later. But barely a foot before her face his arm was blocked by thin air.

The delay left him another half second to take in the rest of the scene. Several others had attempted attacks as well, all frozen in place by the same invisible force. Strong Tk.

Then he recognized the woman as the one that had been with Kaleb Krychek in the media reports. Only for an eye-blink her face was filled with utter terror, then it iced over her eyes zeroing in on Judd, who focused on the woman intensely, but didn't react otherwise. He was the one who had blocked the attacks.

"What the fuck, Judd!?"

"Hawke, she's not here to hurt the pack. I can explain." Judd's voice was so annoyingly calm, fucking Psy. That explanation had better be damn good.

But before Hawke could answer the woman started to speak – or at least she tried. All that came out was a cut-off gurgling sound. She had trouble breathing.

That was when he smelled the blood. A lot of it. It started to pool on the table.

* * *

Alja couldn't breathe. She didn't even register the pain. She just realized Kaleb was no longer with her and she couldn't feel him. Panic struck like a second bullet. This one didn't miss her heart.

Finally her Arrow training took over. Arrow. Judd Lauren was here. An Arrow. The only possible ally. But her lungs refused to work up enough air to produce a sound.

_Find him. _She telepathed instead.

"You mean Kaleb? I can't leave you here, before I prove you're no threat," he answered aloud. Keeping the conversation private would only make her situation in front of the changelings worse.

_He's gone!_ _Drug me, knock me out, kill me, if they don't believe I'm no threat. But find him! He can't die! _They didn't have to do any of it. She lost consciousness the moment the words had left her mind.

Judd turned to Hawke grabbing his shoulders in a hold that was infused with Tk and forced him to look into his eyes. It was a blatant violation of pack hierarchy but right now he couldn't care less for the consequences. The fate of all Psy was at stake. "For the sake of your mate's race, Hawke, don't let her die!" He needed Hawke to understand fast. Mentioning a connection to Sienna was the only thing that would make him pause long enough to listen, to think.

"Nate, get Lara! The rest, evacuate this section of the den!" Hawke barked, pushing off Judd and focusing on the woman again. The room emptied at once, no questions asked. The pack worked as one. Always. "Now talk, Judd."

"We have to be careful. She might be crucial in all of this. If she dies, it might trigger what Faith saw. We need to find out what happened." It must have been something big, something that had left the Ghost no time to plan or send a message first and made him desperate enough to rely on Judd. Because it was Judd who the teleport of the woman had been locked on and there were very few people who could teleport to people at all, even fewer who knew he was alive and could have gotten a lock on him. And to 'port her to him blindly… "He wouldn't have teleported her to me, if she wasn't important and if there was any other way to protect her." When it finally seemed as if Hawke wouldn't attack her, Judd turned to look at the severely injured woman.

Just as he wanted to inspect her wound, his cell phone beeped, the ringtone announcing father Perez.

"_Judd, you need to come here at once. It's our friend._" It was all he had to hear.

"Hawke, I swear I'll explain. Just don't let her die. She might be someone's mate." Because he had seen, what Hawke wouldn't have yet realized in his shock about the violation of the den. He had to hope it was enough to explain later, because he had no more time for it now. He teleported out the second he spoke the words.

* * *

The man on the church floor was dying.

Father Perez was kneeling beside his head with a basic medical kit, the bag-valve mask already pressed against the man's lifeless face. Judd realized he'd never seen the man of God pray before but now he was mumbling urgent prayers as he worked with the bag that produced a strange wet sound and caused red liquid to gush from Kaleb's mouth and nose, whenever he released the pressure. But no coughing followed, the reflex no longer seemed to work.

Judd didn't have to be an M-Psy to see the damage. Kaleb's whole chest seemed to have collapsed. Blood was streaming from under his naked upper body and where broken ribs had pierced through the skin. The only thing Judd could do right now, was to stabilize the breathing movement with his Tk, by lifting the weight of the damaged ribcage off the lungs. His Tk-Cell energy would never suffice to keep him alive, even if he hadn't just emergency teleported out to Xavier's church. He needed help.

Yet he took a few seconds to think. He knew he'd misjudged the situation. He had realized it the moment he'd seen how the woman he had once known as an Arrow was dressed, not in a black uniform, but in a men's shirt and not much else. And he had known whose it was at once. How had he not seen it before? Why had he ignored the obvious, when the Ghost had asked about the second layer of dissonance? He should have seen. He of all people knew Silence could break even in those who were most desperate to keep it. He of all people knew none of them were any different from humans and changelings in their capacity to feel. But for the Ghost to have broken Silence fully? That had always been a thought that belonged to the realm of nightmares, even for Judd, who was used to blood and danger as steady companions. The outcome would be unpredictable. Maybe what he witnessed right now was already a consequence of it.

He had to see the truth.

He could let him die.

Of course, there would be some devastation to the Net, fragile as it was, but it would still survive. And the world would be a safer place. If the Ghost truly had broken Silence, he was the biggest threat to the Net, the most probable catalyst for Faith's vision. He could cause the death of a whole race and devastation to the others. And if Judd saved him now all those deaths would be on him as well.

If he let him die, no one would blame him, no one would even know. Some would die but billions would be safe.

Yet, it was not who he was. His race still deserved a chance, all of them, even the Ghost. After all: He might be someone's mate as well. He didn't know how he knew, why the changeling term even came to his mind. He thought of Alja Dardo, how she had pleaded with him to find Kaleb, while Kaleb had entrusted her to him. He must have known he would never be welcome close to the pack but she alone might have a chance. And he had counted on Judd to protect Alja. He had relied on a friend.

"This time _you_ owe _me_," he muttered as he reached out with his mind.

* * *

Lara had rushed into the room and got to work on the unconscious woman at once. Healer that she was she would only ask what was going on, when her patient was stable and the woman looked anything but.

"She's not changeling," she stated as she ripped the shirt her patient wore to reveal the chest wound that was still bleeding at a critical rate.

"Psy." Hawke answered mechanical. _She might be someone's mate_. Judd's words were echoing in his head as he truly realized what he saw – and smelled. The woman who was supposed to be a lethal Arrow was wearing a men's shirt loosely hanging over hips that were only covered by a pair of panties, as if she'd just gotten out of bed with her lover. And below all the blood she wore a male scent deeply impressed in her skin. But it was not a changeling's scent. What the hell was going on? And what hadn't Judd told him?

"She was shot. Her left lung is torn. The bullet went through and is stuck in her shoulder blade. She needs surgery." Lara's statement pulled him out of his shock.

"Can you do it here?"

"She's not safe to bring to the infirmary, is she?"

"No she isn't."

"I could set up an OR in here if necessary… but I'd like to have Sienna here too to watch her psychic functions. And can we send for Ashaya?" The M-Psy was no medical doctor but the best they had on Psy physiology.

It didn't take Hawke as long as it once had to suppress the impulse to keep his mate out of the volatile situation. He had learned not to clip Sienna's wings when it came to her abilities and her value for the pack. And now involving her made perfect sense: She had basic medical training and was the best martially trained Psy in the den at the moment. He pushed along the mating bond. _I need you_. Then he said to Lara: "Sienna is on her way. And I guess I'll have to call the cats anyway." Pulling out his cell he added: "But I want her out of the den as soon as she's stable enough for a transport."

Lara nodded while she kept working to staunch the bleeding.

* * *

Aden and Vasic appeared seconds after Judd had telepathed them, fluently settling into action without delay. Aden dropped to his knees beside the body, while Vasic started to teleport in medical equipment of all sorts.

When the Tk-traveler settled beside them too, Judd asked him: "Can you take over stabilizing?" He felt the well-practiced Tk of the other man replacing his at once, so he could start to look for tears in the most vital structures and rearrange the cells to patch them up. He also felt another energy, that was harder to grasp but targeted the worst injuries and somehow made it easier to fix them. He had always suspected that Aden had not only diagnostic M-abilities. But he'd never felt an M-Psy heal with his psychic energy before. And that was not the only thing he did. With clipped words he directed Judd and Vasic to readjust pieces of bone while he applied all sorts of medical tech Judd hadn't even seen before. There were pieces of artificial tissue he had Vasic teleport inside the body and something unidentifiable that Judd would try to weave into the ripped strands of the spinal cord.

They kept on working concentrated until an hour later the rattling in Kaleb's breathing stopped. Another half hour later Aden told Xavier to stop the artificial respiration. A container beside the body had filled with a liquid that seemed almost too dark to be blood, and of which Judd could only guess that Vasic had telekinetically removed it from Kaleb's lungs.

"Will you need this for what you're doing?" his fellow Arrow asked. When Judd shook his head, the container disappeared.

"Do you know what happened?" Judd asked finally able to spare enough concentration for a conversation, while Vasic made Kaleb's body hover in the air and turned him so they could start working on his back, which looked even more horrible, if that was possible.

"No, we were engaged in another matter. Someone has kidnapped eight In-Trainings from a training facility. We were investigating, when you called us." Needless to say it could only have been someone who was an insider – or formerly was.

"Did he know?" Judd asked nodding down at the still unconscious Kaleb.

"No we couldn't reach him or the Arrow who was with him, before you called."

"Alja Dardo," Judd answered promptly. It made no sense to keep it a secret that he knew her. Maybe he would finally get some useful information on her.

"You saw her in the reports about the charity event?"

"Yes, I remembered her. I have been meaning to contact you about her for some time. She is very unusual for one of us."

"She is. She is also important." An enigmatic answer.

"How? Is she with Krychek as a spy?" It was a possibility, although Judd believed there was something else, he just couldn't be sure. There were just all those little pieces, the Ghost's behavior, his strange requests.

"No it's for her protection." Aden hesitated then. Unusual. Interesting. Judd thought but he waited what else Aden had to tell him. "Although we are no longer sure the place we chose for her protection is sufficient." He looked down at the still misshapen torso of their patient, where Vasic currently held a gash in the skin open and blood free so Judd could sort the splinters of a vertebra and try to piece them together.

"It seems a strange choice to begin with. Why didn't you transfer her to Venice?" As Judd had learned there was a small enclave of defected Arrows in the Italian city.

"She can't defect. She is important for the Net's stability."

"Because of her shields?" Judd asked knowing that couldn't be all about her.

"You remember her well. And yes, we suppose that is part of it."

"With the other part being that she's an empath?" Judd tried a shot in the dark. It was the one thing that made sense after he had put all the pieces together in his head. None of his fellow Arrows betrayed anything with their reaction. They behaved exactly as trained. And that was what told Judd he'd hit the mark. "So it's true."

The other men shared a silent look. Judd was used to it, knew they were possibly communicating along their unique connection. And as expected it was Aden who spoke. "This is not something you could've remembered." His tone was as icy as always but also guarded.

"No, I guessed."

"We know the priorities of your loyalty have changed…" Aden began.

"I'm still one of you as long as it doesn't interfere with the safety of the people I'm with now." Brenna and the pack were the new loyalty that came even before his hard forged loyalty to the Arrows. As he remembered his time with the secret assassin squad of the Net, he realized something else: They deserved to know. Everything. Something was happening with Kaleb and the Ghost and it would affect all of them. And by saving his life they all took responsibility for it. The secret could no longer be kept. So he told them about the Ghost and about the way he had insured Alja's safety. "She's injured but safe. My people take care of her." He closed his very short version of events.

"It makes no sense, even if he didn't trust us. Alja knew she could always rely on us," Aden said thoughtful.

"I don't think they had the time to discuss that."

* * *

Together with Sienna who had arrived a while ago, Lara had stabilized Alja enough so they could move her to another disinfected table. They set up everything for an operation under Hawke's skeptical gaze. He wouldn't let the woman out of his sight. When Ashaya arrived with her mate Dorian and the alpha pair of the cats, Lara insisted it was getting too crowded to perform a proper surgery in the small meeting room. Both alphas as well as Dorian refused to even leave as far as out of the door, especially Lucas seemed unhappy, that his mate had insisted to join them. Sascha currently was sitting beside the operation table, even touching the potentially dangerous patient.

"This is ridiculous!" Sienna barked out annoyed at the men standing around them, all but crowding them. "She's injured so bad physically, she's not a threat in that area. And on the psychic plane, all of us – ", she pointed at herself, Sascha and Ashaya. "are better equipped to deal with anything she might throw at us, that any of you."

"We'll be right outside," Lucas gritted out through clenched teeth after sharing a look with Hawke and Dorian who were nodding reluctantly.

"Can you sense her? Or telepath to her?" Lara asked, the moment they were alone.

"She's not responding to telepathic communication. I suppose the injury knocked her out for good," Sascha answered at once, having tried to reach the woman since she entered the room.

"And I can't get anywhere close to her mind to try to wake her. Not even by force. Her shields are absolutely airtight," Sienna added. When Sascha sucked in a breath at her mentioning 'by force' she looked at her with raised eyebrows. "Do we know what she's capable of psychically?"

"No," Sascha answered. She didn't have the feeling the woman was dangerous, but that was hardly any proof.

"Then we have to assume she's dangerous for now," Sienna assessed the situation coolly.

"That means it's not enough that she's unconscious. We have to be sure she's out for the whole surgery. If she wakes and reacts disoriented…" Lara trailed off looking expectantly at Ashaya.

The M-Psy's answer was clear. "I would vote in favor of anesthesia even if Psy don't react well to it. Stitching up the lung and removing the bullet from the bone might overload her nervous system otherwise and she'd die of shock."

Ashaya dosed the anesthetic as carefully as possible but made sure the woman would stay unconscious, while Lara performed the surgery. To their relief her vitals stayed stable throughout the whole process.

"I got the bullet out and patched up her lung," Lara reported to Hawke when they were done. "But she has also seven broken ribs and a lot of internal bruising that couldn't have come from the shot she caught. We'll wait until the anesthetic wears off, but I don't think, she will be fit for transport soon. If you could tell me why you consider her dangerous, but still allow her to be treated in the den at all, maybe we can find another solution with the Psy members in both our packs."

Hawke drew a deep breath. He was on the edge ever since the woman had appeared in the middle of his den, the sanctuary of the pack. It would do no good to stir up the whole pack, even less his healer, who didn't yet know about the Ghost and that woman's connection to him. But he couldn't fully hold back his exasperation either. "To be honest I have no idea how dangerous she is. But Judd practically told me we're protecting her to humor a fucking weapon of mass destruction."

"Are you alright?" she asked concerned, stepping closer and wrapping an arm around his waist, anchoring him with touch. Usually it should be the other way around: The alpha comforting his pack. But since she was their healer she was responsible for him too.

He returned the embrace as he answered her. "It seems we have no choice but to get fully involved in the Psy's civil war," he began to explain, thinking that he couldn't wait to have Sienna in his arms instead. He needed his mate right now. "I don't want to put the pack through this."

Suddenly something in the room behind them started to beep irregularly. Sienna must be removing the heart rate monitor already, Lara thought.

"Lara!" Sienna's call sounded insecure. Lara turned and saw the equipment still in place at her patient. The irregular beeping _was_ her heartbeat. She ran back into the room.

"Her vitals are deteriorating," Ashaya stated perplexed. She looked down probing the body on the table with her M-abilities. "But she's fine. There's nothing wrong with her wound."

That was when Alja stopped breathing.

* * *

They had made some progress with the most vital structures and now it was on Judd to fix as much cellular damage as he could. It would flame him out within the next few hours nonetheless. So many structures were destroyed or injured critically: The heart was still working but heavily bruised and impaired by the increasing swelling. Almost all vertebrae had been crushed to pieces, the tender nerves they protected dissected in numerous places. The skull only bore hairline cracks but the brain started swelling too. So he worked on the heart, skull and brain first after they had patched up the bone structures and nerves of the spine with so much of the Arrow's impressive tech they should be able to regenerate fully as Aden had promised. And Judd knew it was possible. He had seen Arrows recover from severe injuries before, had always wondered how Aden managed to keep them alive. Now he knew it was some seriously advanced medical technology combined with Aden's exceptional psychic talent to make the body accept anything that would help it heal.

He should concentrate fully on his work, but he had to know about Alja too. So he kept on asking his fellow Arrows about everything they knew, which seemed to be less than he expected. "So she might have the ability to influence emotion on a much larger scale, than you thought?"

"We don't know for sure, we have only begun to suspect recently that there was more to her being different. It makes no sense for Ming to go after her that hard if there wasn't something about her, he considers very dangerous. But she hid at least the full extent of her abilities from us." Of course Aden didn't sound angry or disappointed, just very thoughtful.

"So you have no idea in what way she really can do or might want to do with them?" Judd knew empaths weren't capable of causing harm to other beings. That was why he had so readily left Alja with the wolves. Suddenly he wasn't so sure if that rule applied for an empath who had managed to live as an Arrow for decades.

"She's just been trying to survive all of her life. Until recently, we had no reason she had any other goal," Aden claimed, while he was fastening an electronic headband on Kaleb's forehead. Countless wires already protruded from his chest and back. Then the medic nodded at Vasic, who checked something on the electronic gauntlet that was fused to his forearm. Then little lights came alive on the headband.

"Silence," Vasic suddenly said. Both men looked up at him, wondering if he was referring to their patient. "She's endangering Silence. It's what she always did, even in the Squad. And it's the only thing that makes sense for her. It's against her nature. And if she's as strong as we suspect she could affect the whole Net."

Aden raised his eyebrows at the sudden elaborate statement from the usually silent Vasic. "But if it's true that both of them have broken Silence or, in her case, whatever component of it she was capable of keeping active for so many years, they're no longer predictable for us."

"They never were." Judd saw the true extent of the whole enigma now. "Those two are ticking time bombs. And you put them in a range where they might well set each other off."

"At the time it seemed a reasonable idea. We didn't know how they would affect each other."

Judd thought of the short moment he'd seen the fear in Alja's eyes as she had appeared in front of him, then he thought of Brenna, of how he loved her and how she always stole his shirts. He'd never have believed something like this could happen to someone like him, before it _had_ happened. You couldn't predict something like that.

Again it was Vasic who spoke, pulling him from his thoughts, with his strange comment. "The outcome might be unpredictable. But the course of events is logical: Silence was brought to the people from the shadows in which the Arrows live. Now it will be undone by one of us, out of those same shadows." His tone was final, his eyes averted as he spoke, as if he saw something in the distance.

Judd looked at Aden who just slightly shook his head. Before he could answer his cell phone beeped loudly. Looking down at the complicated cell structure, he was trying to rebuild, he decided to call back later.

* * *

After Alja had stopped breathing on her own the damn males had finally agreed to let Lara treat her in the infirmary – but not without a bunch of soldiers standing guard. Now she lay in a proper hospital bed, hooked up to a life support machine that was barely doing enough to keep her from dying. Sascha ignored the hustling around her and tried to work her way into Alja's shields once more. They were still stable and very complex even with the drugs in her bloodstream messing with her psychic powers. But with her mental functions also starting to falter, Sascha finally found a small hole to slip inside the innermost layer – and was totally amazed by what she saw. Because this empath's mind looked nothing like hers. There were none of the colorful rainbows that surrounded her own mind. And there was no – What!? She had no time to explore any longer. She returned to the physical plane at once. "There's no link!" she gasped out. "She's not linked up to any psychic network."

"That's impossible," Ashaya began. But after a short look at the monitors she confirmed "The pattern of her vital functions failing would fit lacking biofeedback."

"I'll call Judd. Maybe this is an Arrow thing. They have some sort of suicide mechanisms in case of capture." Sienna had her cell already pressed to her ear, when she finished speaking. Seconds ticked away while the beeping of the heart rate monitor turned more and more frantic.

"He's not answering!" Frustrated she threw her phone on a table. Then she reached out with her Tp, trying the Lauren family's mode of contact for emergencies. Her eyes went black for a few seconds. Then she was back running for the medical kit.

"Sienna what are you doing?" Lara gasped startled as the younger woman plunged the epi shot into her patient.

A swishing sound as Alja's lungs filled with air. Then her eyes sprung open.

* * *

When Judd's phone beeped again he answered at once.

"She's awake now. Do they need to know anything else about her?" he asked after hanging up.

Aden shook his head. Then he asked. "Will she be safe with your people? We could try to relocate her but honestly I don't know if any of our places are still safe after they managed to get to our children."

"I'll call them again and tell them what you told me. If she doesn't behave hostile, she should be ok. I can do it now. I won't be able to do much more today." He had lost valuable energy telepathing to Sienna. Already the edges of his vision turned dark with the oncoming flame-out. "Do you think he's stable enough for the next twenty-four hours?"

Vasic checked his gauntlet again and stated: "We've got him monitored."

"Vasic can see all vital functions including his brain waves. If any of them get worse or if he regains consciousness, which is unlikely at this point, we'll know." Aden elaborated the answer of his fellow Arrow, who had returned to his usual short spoken attitude. "We have to go find the In-Trainings now. But we can return anytime if necessary. – But I don't expect it will be. What you did was impressive. I didn't know Tk-Cells could do that."

"That makes us even. I didn't know how you worked with your patients until now either."

"Yes, maybe there's more to all of us," Aden answered, his gaze lingering on Kaleb's still form for a moment.

"I have prepared a proper room for him. If you want to take him there first." Father Perez' voice came from the shadows in the back of the church. Judd couldn't remember when he'd left and fully concentrated as he'd been on Kaleb, he hadn't sensed him return until he spoke.

It took Vasic no time to teleport Kaleb and the needed medical equipment to the room father Perez pointed out to him.

"There's one for you too, as always," Xavier added towards Judd, after both active Arrows had left.

"Thank you. I know I owe you an explanation," Judd began.

"I think I understand a lot of it already. The rest can wait."

"Are you sure you still want us here? This goes beyond what…"

"I suppose someone like him will be least expected in a place like this. We can talk when you've recovered. And it will leave me some time to think this through as well." After all he had to consider, if anything he had told the Ghost might have influenced the situation as well. "I know what happened tonight might change the world. For all of us, but especially for the Psy. It is what we always wanted. And it always was a dangerous path. I'm not backing down now."

"Now you know who he is. Doesn't that change anything?"

"I am surprised, but if anything, it gives me hope. If someone, all of us considered so deep into Silence, can come to feel so deeply, there aren't many left who couldn't."

"You know?" Judd had expected utter confusion about tonight's events from their fellow rebel. But the man seemed as calm as any human could be after someone had almost died on their church floor. Of course, just as Kaleb had had his reasons to teleport Alja to him he must've had his reasons to come here himself. Had he even expected to survive?

"I told you I understand a lot of it already. And I'm not blind Judd. But we can talk tomorrow. Now rest. Your eyes are already completely black." The father had seen the symptoms of flameout on Judd a few times before, so he knew the man wouldn't be able to stay on his feet much longer.

And Judd obeyed the worried command of his friend. He knew he would need his strength to continue the healing tomorrow.


	60. Chapter 60

**Chapter 60**

"Ming, you acted without consent." Shoshanna's mental voice cut through the Council vault that was now occupied by half its former users. "The outcome of this operation was totally unpredictable. Kaleb could have died in that attack. And we haven't yet found a way to compensate the Net for the death of one of us."

Ming's mind was present in the vault but his thoughts were absent. "I had to act since your little dirt campaign obviously didn't have enough influence on the public to rattle his political standing," he shot back at Shoshanna.

"What did you expect? That the public suddenly starts to voice strong opinions, even take public action against him? The campaign might have worked on humans or changelings but it's our own people we're talking about. We have strived to perfect nature for a long time. Not always with success. Almost every family tried at least once to tamper with their genes. Maybe the Krychek group took it too far back in their days but no one will discuss this matter publicly. And the insane family member? I don't think I have to give you the statistics on that." Because there were incidences in all the families as well. And if not, you could always find someone who had been rehabilitated by the long arm of the Council's law. And the Psy sure as hell didn't talk about those either.

"Shoshanna is right," Tatiana agreed. "It was worth a shot but in the end we know how our people react: They notice these things and then they look away. It's what we taught them." With 'we' she referred to the Council that had bullied the public to cower from its power for so long they didn't know what to do with the truth even if they got it served as a media scandal. "And it worked, as long as we kept our business subtle and secret. What you did may cause the outbreak of an open war. Your methods start getting too risky. One could almost think you're not acting rational anymore."

"It was a well calculated risk," he stated unimpressed.

"Kaleb's firewalls are closed up since yesterday, he isn't reacting to any telepathic communication _and_ we don't know where any of them are. What is calculated about that?"

"He's obviously still alive, in what condition doesn't matter. On the contrary, if the attack really did hurt him physically, we achieved something we couldn't have ever expected to achieve. And it most certainly took _her_ out of the equation, if not it will in the long run." Somehow Ming knew she was still alive. But he was no longer unsettled by that because he knew he'd get to her.

"No Ming. You are becoming obsessive in regard to that woman. We trusted your judgement so far, but this alliance is over, if you don't bring us proof of either her dangerousness or of her death," Shoshanna stated in a tone that was as final as it was icy. Ming couldn't have cared less.

"Are you threatening me?" He said it more out of habit than out of real involvement in the discussion. His thoughts were circling around something else. He was so close to his prey.

It was Tatiana, who answered this time. "We don't have to. Your increasingly irrational actions will be your self-made downfall. But we're not going to be part of it."

"Then this discussion is over." He turned and left the vault. The assassins he'd sent would hit the stupid girl right into the heart literally or figuratively. Even if it was the latter, he'd just have to wait.


	61. Chapter 61

**Chapter 61**

Alja watched the liquid in her IV drip slowly, holding on for dear life to her Arrow training. It was the last thing that kept her from breaking. And for once she was thankful for the hell of her childhood, the ability to function under the most severe stress. And function she did – barely. She had checked her psychic abilities. They all seemed to be working. So the infusion wasn't drugged. That was at least something. And the healer woman had all but thrown everyone out of her room. There had been soldiers and they had wanted to question her. But the fierce changeling woman had said she wasn't fit for it. She wished she weren't. But her mind had never been clearer.

Sascha Duncan had been there, too. But she hadn't asked anything. She had only told her she was safe here, if she was working with the rebellion. But she didn't feel safe. Not with the silver-haired predator who had almost killed her on sight. And not with Kaleb completely out of her reach. The changelings had replaced her clothing so she didn't even have his scent. She'd been in the Net, even dared far away from the location where her mind had relinked to see if he was ok. But she could only look at the brightness of his unconcealed cardinal star from afar, because all around him were small, barely visible trackers that were probably programmed to catch her again if she came any closer. And she knew it meant nothing that his star was still visible. His body could be beyond recovery. He could be dying right now and she wouldn't know before his bright light blinked out for good. She'd almost risked trying to slip past the trackers, but if Kaleb had thought she'd be safer with a pack of changelings, she should probably stay under the radar at all costs. So after she had camouflaged her mind on the psychic plane as well as on the physical plane, she had nothing more to do.

She couldn't even telepathically scan her surroundings. There were at least two more Psy minds out there, one of which had warned her not to use any psychic abilities, if she wanted to stay conscious. So she just lay there staring at the ceiling, worried sick about Kaleb, the last second of her fall and the ugly sound of bones breaking replaying endlessly in her mind. She knew there was even more horror in what had happened, but she wasn't ready to think about it yet. She couldn't break down in an unknown and dangerous environment.

Still she was trying to fight back her tears, when she heard someone enter her dark room. That someone was trying hard not to make a sound. Alja turned her eyes toward the entrance and saw the figure standing there leaning against the door frame. This was no one she'd seen before. The woman just stood there breathing hard, as if she'd done something physically challenging. Then she shakily moved closer. Her steps seemed insecure. So she was probably not a threat to Alja even in her weakened state. Not moving Alja squinted at her to get a clearer look at the intruder. She was barefoot and only wore a night gown. Her hair was cut very short and she seemed too thin. Another patient? Why did they let her in here?

Finally the woman entered the radius of Alja's natural shields. Alja scanned her mind at once. She was human. And she moved slowly as if she'd just learned how to do it. Alja didn't move at all but stayed prepared for physical attack, while the woman just stared at her wide eyed. A dozen different emotions crossed her face. She seemed to sway a little. Then she sat down on the bed, shaking even harder than when she'd walked.

"Who are you?" she finally asked.

Alja didn't know how to respond. She didn't have to. The woman went on before she could.

"They told me Sascha Duncan was the only known empath."

"Is she not?" What could a human patient who lived with changelings know about empaths?

"No. You're another, obviously. You're even a projector," she stated simply.

There was no denying her. Alja was simply too shocked. "How can you know that?"

"Because I can remember all of it now. I remembered bits and pieces after Sascha was with me. But her shields weren't similar enough. It took your waterfall shields. Projector shields. They were the key." She said it as if that should make perfect sense to Alja. It didn't. At all.

"You're human. You cannot see my shields." How did they have someone here who knew about her? No one did! Was it a trap?

"Another projector described them to me," the woman said calmly. She had stopped shaking and just looked at Alja with unveiled curiosity on her face.

"There are others like me? How can you know all this? No Psy even knows, much less a human." Alja blurted out the first questions on her mind, while she tried to figure out if it could all be a set-up by Ming LeBon. But no, a whole pack of changelings was definitely too much even for Ming's resources. And then there was Judd Lauren, who had been out of the Squad's reach for years. But had he been? Yes, Kaleb had trusted him. Her head started to spin with suspicions, so she barely heard the strange woman's next answer.

"There used to be others like you. But as I was given to understand the Net has changed since I first lived. Maybe they…" The woman seemed lost in thought for several minutes.

Alja stayed mute, having no clue how to deal with this turn of events.

"Oh, I'm sorry! You seem as clueless as I first was, when I woke up." The woman gently smiled now. "We should start at the beginning. I am Alice Eldridge. Does that mean something to you?"

Of course it did! Only Alja's Arrow control kept her head from snapping up at the name. She had learned about the scientist years ago in her quest of finding out more about her rare designation. For years she'd had the hope of getting her hands on the book Alice Eldridge had published on empathy. But she'd been disappointed, when Kaleb told her he had accessed it and it wouldn't help them finding out how she could heal the Net. Yes, and he had told her how he found the scientist, who had lived a hundred years ago, in a cryonic lab. So it could be true. It made even sense, Although she couldn't imagine for the life of her, why Kaleb chose to bring two women that were connected to him into a pack of changeling predators to – well what _had_ he done it for? Protection? She'd only find out by talking to Alice. "Yes," she answered hesitantly. "But you don't know about projective empathy. There was close to nothing about it in your book."

"Of course not! They wouldn't let me publish even a fraction of what I researched." Suddenly there was a fiery glint in her eyes. Outrage – Alja realized, it was outrage at how her work had been treated. That brought Alja to another question. "But you're ready to share that research with me now?"

"Naturally, who else would I share it with?"

"You don't even know me."

"I don't have to. I had one of your kind lock my memory and program it to unlock only when another strong projector was close to me with those shields of yours. It was the only way to ensure my knowledge wouldn't be misused."

Alja doubted all of this entirely, but there was also a stubborn spark of hope, that by some curious accident she had found the one person who might help her with her projection. "But how do you know you can trust me?"

"Because of what you are. You are part of what I believe to be the solution to the mental problems of the Psy race. Your kind has always been. They just forgot."

"That doesn't explain much to me. I'm beginning to think I know a lot less about 'my kind' than you."

"Ah, yes! Of course you wouldn't. It is a wonder you still exist after all they told me about the Net as it is now. In fact I wonder why Silence worked at all with your designation still around. I feared they would try to solve that permanently."

Again Alice seemed to be carried away by her own fast mind. But that last thing at least was something Alja knew about. "They did. I'm the only one left. And I think I was more like a freak accident. Half of my genes haven't been in an individual inside the Net since Silence was imposed on us."

"That is bad. It will be a lot of work for one projector alone. But maybe the other empaths can learn to compensate. The different subdesignations can develop the skills of others to a certain extent. There is a big overlap between the abilities after all. I suppose that's why I remembered some things, when Sascha was here. It might still be possible to readjust..."

Alja tried her best to keep up with the ramblings of the scientist, but she just couldn't. "Wait, please! I really don't understand any of this," she interrupted her.

"Oh yes of course. It's just so good to be able to access my entire mind again. We can start with what you know," she agreed at once.

"Thank you. But before you go on: Are you sure, you should be in here? No one here seems to trust me. How have you even been allowed into my room?"

"I heard them talk about you. They think you're dangerous. But that's because they don't know what you are, isn't it? But don't worry. I'm still a free person as far as I know. I can go wherever and talk to whomever I like." Alice even seemed to like the fact that she probably did something the other people around here wouldn't appreciate. Alja started to like her. "And they don't have a guard in front of your door. Lara wouldn't have the soldiers inside her infirmary so they're all stationed outside. That other Psy, Walker, is the only one allowed in and he's in the office with Lara right now."

_Walker_, so that was the one who monitored her psychically. Of course they'd know that was all that was necessary to keep her contained right now. When she had tried to move earlier she had learned quickly that she couldn't even sit up. The pain in her left shoulder and inside her chest was crippling. Even breathing too deep hurt. So she'd take what she got. And Alice Eldridge sitting on her bed ready to share her knowledge about empathy was by far more than she could have expected. "Alright then. How about we find some common ground first? What do you know about Silence and the Net today?"

"I have already learned that the attempt of the enhanced Mercury Protocol, Silence as you call it, has been successful but it's failing now. And it has never worked for you, has it?"

"No it hasn't. But in return my powers don't seem to work in the Net either although I should be able to project through the whole Net."

"Oh. That's a little different from my field of research. I'm afraid I can tell you nothing about the Net under Silence, except that it would be harmed by that Protocol. But you found that out the hard way already. My research focused more on the skills of empaths before Silence."

"Anything you can tell me might help. I know close to nothing about my designation. Except that the Net can't function properly without it."

"Then I'll start with the basics. empaths are healers of the soul. They can read and influence emotions like a telepath can do with thoughts," she began.

"Ok up until there I'm still with you. But how would that solve our mental problems? The rates were spinning out of proportions long before Silence. If the empaths could've prevented that, they would have, wouldn't they?" Alja tried to remember what she'd learned about Silence. But in the Net it was hard to distinguish Council lies from scientific truth. Their propaganda during the last weeks had shown that.

"When I began my research a lot of the old knowledge was already sinking into oblivion. I was trying to recover it. But sadly I ran out of time."

Just like Alja did now. "Then tell me how did it work?"

"Empaths could dampen negative emotions, take them out of someone who suffered, for example after a trauma. They could modulate feelings of fear and sadness but also anger. But that's not all. Especially the projectors could also heal those who didn't feel at all."

"Sociopaths?" She should be able to cure butchers like Santano Enrique? "That's impossible."

"No it's just very hard. Imagine what you could achieve if you make someone feel regularly with projection. For example guilt for hurting people and compassion for other creatures in general."

"I could teach them to feel?"

"Exactly."

At that moment Alja's world began to shake. Everything she had ever been taught about her people, about the untamable monsters inside them, seemed to dissolve. And everything she'd ever hoped for became logical, became true. Had it all been a waste? A hundred years of fighting emotion. A whole life of fighting her own feelings? "If what you say is true, then there never was a need for Silence in the first place. We had all the solutions. We had a cure. How did we forget?"

"I think the Psy forgot a lot of it over a long time span before Silence. Maybe it was the technical advancement. Look how into computers and tech we are – the Psy more than any other race; although you have the Net to save and process data. The Psy were so sure they could do everything better with technology than with what nature provided. Maybe modern medicine and psychiatry gave the Psy such hope, it let them forget that they once had abilities to heal the soul as well."

"But you know those ways?" Hope and desperation were fighting hard inside Alja. Maybe there was something that could help her people after all if she failed.

"I think I reconstructed enough to stabilize the Net in my time. Today I'm not so sure if it will suffice."

Before Alja could respond, the door to her room burst open and the lights flashed on. "What did you do to her?"

Pale green eyes focused on Alja. They belonged to the tall man who had run into the room and was now pulling Alice away from her bed. She didn't physically react to it, her body still too weak and too slow. Her mind on the other hand reacted fast. "She did nothing to me, Walker, let me go!" she retorted at once. "I came here by myself, because I was curious."

Alja herself couldn't answer right away. When the door had burst open she had automatically tensed up to react to a threat, like she was trained to do, resulting in a sickening pain behind her left upper ribs. And for a moment it was hard to catch her breath again. She hated to be so weak. It was what she had tried to avoid all her life. And now it turned right back into an even worse nightmare than it had been before Alice had come to her.

"Lara you need to sedate her again until I make sure Alice is ok," he told the healer who had entered on his heels.

"No!" Alice and Alja said at the same time. Only Alja's voice broke off again, while Alice's was getting firmer by the minute. "They really don't trust you at all!" she declared a little surprised. When she was pulled further away and Lara went for Alja's IV, she struggled to free herself from Walkers grip shouting angrily at him. "Dammit she's not dangerous. She's your last fucking chance of survival."

"Yeah, I'm sure she is. Relax now Alice! We're only trying to help you." Walker answered her as if he was speaking with a retarded child. It only enraged the scientist more.

"She didn't manipulate or program me. Scan my mind, if you think it's necessary. But don't hurt her. It wasn't her fault!" Alice had managed to step in front of Walker so he had to look into her eyes rather than focus on Lara who was ready to inject something out of a syringe into Alja's IV.

"Wait!" he said. He wouldn't hurt the Arrow if it wasn't absolutely necessary. He had trained some of them back in the Net. But that was also why he knew how dangerous they could be. "With what Judd told us there's a possibility she's telling the truth." To Alja's relief Lara lowered her arm at once. Towards Alice he added: "You would allow me to scan your mind?"

"If you don't believe me otherwise, yes. And well, I would prefer to have Sascha do it, if she's still here. I have to talk to her anyway. I can remember everything now."

"That sounds like a trap to me," Lara remarked turning to look at Walker. "You're the stronger telepath."

"Alright then you do it." Alice actually seemed annoyed but not scared to allow a Psy into her mind. Of course, she had lived in a time where humans were wary but not as outright frightened of Psy as today.

It took Walker only a minute before he said. "There are no signs of telepathic intrusion."

"Good can we all sit down and talk like civilized people now?"

Alja was so relieved she almost smiled at Alice's snarky remark. But she managed to keep up the cool façade, waiting carefully for the next critical situation. She couldn't let down her guard yet. She couldn't trust any of them.


	62. Chapter 62

**Chapter 62**

For the first time since the woman, Alja Dardo, as he knew now, had literally crashed into the den, Hawke started to relax a little. He still didn't like the idea of getting involved into the Psy's war, especially after they'd already had a battle with Pure Psy on their grounds. But Judd had hit the nail on the head. This was about his mate's race. And he couldn't turn away from that. Not when they might have the chance to help them become more human after all.

And that was exactly what the three women had been discussing most of the time. Alice and Sascha were sitting in comfortable chairs that had been pulled as close as possible to Alja's bed. Alice had explained to them how she believed empathy could become a cure for Silence. And Alja had confirmed that most of her theories might work in the Net, if she only knew how to make it carry emotion. There were some details he hadn't understood but he had learned more about the designation than he had in all the time knowing Sascha. And the way Lucas had listened with absolute focus told him he had as well. That meant something considering he was her mate for almost four years. He looked at Alice, who obviously had developed an inability to shut her mouth since she'd gained access to her memory. Only for a very few moments her eyes had swept away suddenly and she'd looked sad. Now she was explaining vigorously to Sascha and Alja how psychopathic tendencies could be influenced by an empath.

"Maybe, we should leave the room before they decide to use us as guinea pigs," Lucas suddenly said to him from across the table in the corner of Alja's infirmary room, where they had withdrawn after they had heard all they needed to know about the new turn of events and started to get headaches from the fast talking scientist.

"You're ready to leave your mate with that stranger?" Hawke asked sounding more surprised than he actually was. Apart from the fact that even seriously injured, the woman had the air of a soldier, she seemed somehow –safe. As if he knew she wouldn't harm any of them. Maybe that was an empath thing. After all he had liked Sascha from the start as well. But this woman, she was different, unpredictable. He mustn't forget that.

The other alpha leaned closer and answered so low only changeling ears would hear it. "My mate just gave me a hint that we're disturbing their progress, because we're scaring Alja."

Hawke glanced over to the injured woman on the bed. Her face was as expressionless and cold as any Psy's. Almost too expressionless, considering how badly she was wounded. And since all kinds of drugs messed with Psy abilities she had refused anything for the pain since she woke up. She should be in so much pain not even her conditioning would override it. And she was an empath. No, she was too composed. There had to be something else. And under the smell of blood and antiseptic Hawke could smell very faintly the acrid tang of fear of adrenalin pumping through her system. How in hell did she pull off that façade?

"We can wait in Lara's office. That should be close enough," he answered already getting up.

He watched Alja as Lucas affectionately kissed his mate's nape, before he left the room. She had held her breath for just a second when the cat had come close. That was all the reaction he could sense. With a shudder he realized that this was what Sienna could've become. It was a disturbing thought.

* * *

"You should sleep now – both of you," Sascha stated sternly. Although Alja showed still no sign of any emotional reaction, she seemed understandably exhausted. And Alice kept on talking agitated but her eyes were threatening to fall shut anytime now.

"No, we don't have time," Alja protested, although every word hurt and her voice was barely more than a whisper.

"Alice is still in recovery from cryonic suspension and you are badly injured. And I can feel in how much pain you are."

"Pain doesn't matter," Alja forced out. But before she could scrape up enough air for any more words Alice looked at her with concern in her eyes.

"Sascha is right. I am really tired and you can barely speak. Besides we have discussed everything we could based on my theoretic knowledge. The next step would be testing our theories inside the Net."

And that was something Alja couldn't do yet. Not when she had to stay absolutely concealed, not when she couldn't rely on Kaleb's protection. Kaleb. The mere thought of him tore her apart. Kaleb and the way he tried to protect her. That was something Alja didn't want to think about. And suddenly she realized that she couldn't be alone now. Even more so, she couldn't be alone in a den full of predatory changelings. She'd been trained to pull through on her own. Had done that for all her life. But right now the very basis of that life was shaken. Everything she'd ever believed in suddenly changed and then Kaleb… And of all the situations she could have broken in, it had to be when she was deep in enemy territory with no one close she could even remotely trust. But that wasn't true. There was Sascha. Alja knew it was probably just mental breakdown that had her believe there might be a connection to the other empath, one that rectified trust even though she barely knew the daughter of Councilor Duncan. She didn't care, couldn't. She just knew the other empath was her only possible way to stay stable.

But Sascha and Alice already rose to leave. Sascha even had to support Alice's frail body. The human clearly wasn't used to sitting up that length of time, her physical strength still falling far back behind the vigor of her mind.

_Could you stay a little longer? I won't sleep anyway. _The telepathic plea escaped her almost without volition. _We don't have to talk about complicated things. I just…_

Sascha's resolve vanished, because for the first time she felt something from Alja. The Arrow was careful not to let any emotion slip out. Sascha had not often met people who could do that, shield off their emotions so entirely. She'd almost have believed Alja was silent when she first saw her awake. But now slivers of desperation accompanied her mental voice.

_I'll take Alice to her room and then come back._ She replied calmly.

Alja just had to believe her. The few minutes until she returned were a dangerous game of fighting thoughts that would pull her into the inner abyss Kaleb had just pulled her from. The abyss –Kaleb – bones crunching. Alja's head began to spin with the sheer terror of the memory her own mental image had stirred up.

_Alja are you ok? _A soft telepathic voice pulled her back just in time. She forced her eyes open. Sacha was already sitting beside her bed again. She hadn't even heard her reenter.

_They let you come back._

_Well, it's not like I would let them stop me, if they tried to hold me back. _Light mental laughter accompanied Sascha's voice_ But right now, none of us is too sure what to do with you, so they'll follow my lead anyway._

_They're just so … intense. I'm not used to that much emotion around me. _And she really wasn't, not even when she had worked with the birds before. Another memory she'd rather not awaken right now.

_Yes, predatory changelings always are and in the current situation they're tensed up because of you. _

Alja admired how Sascha could talk about it so matter-of-factly. As much as she sometimes wanted to incite an emotional response in Kaleb, she was glad she wasn't surrounded by this kind of intensity all the time. It seemed threatening. But maybe that was intentional. After all she was a stranger, even more. _I'm an enemy soldier, who intruded deep into your territory, it is a wonder I'm even alive. _

_That is one way to put it. But you're also hope. I might have left the Net, but I still care deeply for everyone in it. And what we worked out with Alice tonight might be the first real chance for the Psy for over a hundred years. _

_I've heard that before. _The NetMind had shown her over and over. _I'm just still not sure if I'm able to do it. _Her own hope was a fragile thing, even after what she'd learned tonight. _The pictures the NetMind showed me still don't seem to fit what we talked about. _

_Yes, they are very unique. _Alja had shown them to Sascha earlier when they had worked with Alice. _But then, maybe it is something only you can understand. The NetMind never talked to me like that. There must be something unique about you too._

_Maybe not as much as you think. I know the NetMind had an eye on you too. It just didn't have to interact with you as much, because you weren't alone, you were protected by your mother. _

Sascha was surprised at the latent envy she received from Alja as she said it. After all she had felt pretty much alone all her life. Of course Alja was right: As an Arrow she had to have been even more alone, growing up not only among the Silent but in the secret assassin squad. Sascha still didn't fully understand how Alja even survived. But in one aspect she was wrong. _My mother would have discarded me like so much garbage at the first sign that my existence conflicted with her business interests. She proved that by cutting me off the moment I was with the cats._ It no longer hurt as much to talk about it. Still Sascha felt the bitterness creep up as she said the words.

_Yes, when she knew you were safe. When she knew they'd take care of you in a way she never could._ Alja had thought a lot about what made her different from Sascha, anything was better that to think about the – other things.

_I wouldn't have expected you to say something so_ _empath-like. _Sascha replied with a sad smile. And maybe that wasn't all there was to it. The other woman probably held on to some emotional idea of the mother-daughter connection she had never had herself. If Sascha had learned one thing by now, it was that every Psy who wasn't Silent had their own unique ways of coping with their world. She was glad she no longer needed it. _I've stopped looking through rose-colored glasses a long time ago. The PsyNet no longer is a place where that kind of emotional motivation exists._

But Alja knew it did, knew emotion hadn't been eradicated that deep. Just as she'd explained to Kaleb that night in the gym, that now seemed eons ago, there were unconscious motivations that still drove everyone except maybe the worst psychopaths. _Then tell me why your mother became a Councilor. Her interests always lay in business not in politics. Of course political power goes with business power, but there'd have been easier ways, ways less dangerous to her own life, if she simply wanted her business to thrive. The Council seat might have given her some power and insights, she wouldn't have had otherwise but on the other hand it probably distracted her from her business as much as contributed to it. It's why Anthony refused his seat the first time._

Sascha was silent for a moment. She noted that Alja had become calmer during their conversation, as if it stabilized her to try to fix someone else's emotional problems. Only Sascha didn't see it as a problem anymore. She was done with that part of her life as much as a child ever could be with not being loved by its mother. Nikita Duncan was one hundred percent business. Everyone knew that. Period. _Maybe she had some other reasons. I really don't…_

_It's because the Council is above the law._ Alja interrupted her. _They can protect even the worst criminals._

Sascha flinched at the words she had used herself a long time ago. _That doesn't make sense. What does my mother's hiding crimes have to do with protecting me? _Sascha was intrigued by Alja's reasoning but she started to doubt the woman was mentally fully capable at the moment.

_It is so beautiful to see. You really don't think like the Silent anymore, do you? I hope I can achieve that too one day. _Alja replied with a smile that made her look like the empath she was, for the first time since Sascha had met her. _But try to think like a Silent Psy for once: What is the worst crime in our world?_

_Breaking Sil… _– Sascha went utterly quiet for long seconds, as she understood what Alja was trying to tell her. _She needed the political power to protect me._

_It's just a thought. But we both have lived under Silence long enough to know it's never that complete, never as simple as it looks at first or even at second glance._

And Sascha knew Alja was right. After all she hadn't stopped sending her mother pictures of her daughter Naya, even though she never got any indication they were received on an emotional level. Somewhere inside her the hope that her mother might have some emotional connectivity left had persisted. And she also understood something else. Even though Alja tried to shut herself off, probably had to do it all her life, she was an empath to the core. There was no other way she could've sensed the single small chink in Sascha's otherwise complete happiness – the relationship to her mother. And trying to heal it simply was her nature. Doing it probably even stabilized her in her own straining situation. _Thank you for those thoughts, Alja. You really are a kind soul._

_Don't tell those predators outside there._ Alja answered with a small smile, her features relaxing just a fraction, revealing a glimpse of the gentle nature that lived inside her.


	63. Chapter 63

**Chapter 63**

_Alja!_ He couldn't sense her.

That was the first conscious thought that entered Kaleb's mind. And it shocked him awake at once. He reached out with his senses in the physical world and the Net at once. The first scan revealed nothing. She wasn't close by. And the camouflage mind she'd shown him was no longer to be found in the Net. Cold sweat broke out along his spine. He tried to search deeper, found himself distracted by something that just wouldn't let him concentrate on her.

Pain.

Raw pain was everywhere, in his skull, his chest, his back, even dully throbbing in his arms and legs. There was so much of it he almost choked. Every breath hurt in his ribs. But he was breathing, so obviously not dead. He hadn't counted on that.

Slowly memories flooded back in. His calculation had been that he would die in father Perez' church. He scanned his surroundings again this time without a restriction to Alja's mind. He found Judd's close by. No! If Judd was here Alja had to be close. Had he made a mistake? His heart started racing, every beat shoving more pain through his chest, making him feel dizzy. But he forced his mind and senses back on track. He couldn't afford to be distracted now. Not before he knew what happened to Alja. He opened his eyes to a familiar place, Xavier's place. He sensed the man close by as well. But why was Judd here? He contacted the Arrow. No reaction. He found the father's mind instead. _Xavier. _He called out to him.

_Stop! I'm coming to you. _

The human's thoughts sounded strangled. He hadn't telepathed him carefully enough. He could've crushed his mind, Kaleb realized. But why? He usually could telepath to humans just fine. Something was wrong with his mind – but no, this thing didn't start in his mind, it started in his chest and it had nothing to do with the physical pain. His mind was functional but there was just this choking feeling that sliced through him, clouded every thought and made his mind struggle to bring his body to react even though it was futile. He had to move. He just had to find Alja. But, his body was useless. No matter how hard he tried to move, the pain would just stop his muscles from reacting to his brain's commands. Sweat trickled down his forehead, his face, his neck and at the sensation of it the image of Alja's fingers, cold, lifeless giving him one last caress flashed through his battered mind. This was more than agony, more than fear. It messed up his thought process so bad that it took him a while to find out what it was he felt: He was panicked.

And Alja's absence was the cause of it.

_Alja. _

_Alja. _

_Alja. _

It was all he could think about. He had to find her. She had to be ok.

Although it couldn't have been more than a minute since his last attempt he was about risk telepathing to father Perez again, when he sensed his mind approach. So he managed to reign himself in. He heard a door and the father entered his room. "Calm down friend. You're safe here," his gentle voice commanded.

"Why is Judd here?" His voice was a hoarse, barely audible whisper. To his relief Xavier seemed to understand him.

"I called him to help. You were dying." The words were determined, the soldier Xavier also was, sounding through.

"I know. He shouldn't be here. He has to protect her." Kaleb couldn't help various scenarios of how Alja could be hurt or in danger unfolding in his mind.

"He said she was safe with his people. She was injured but they treated her and she is stable."

Alja safe in a pack of wolves? Injured? He had to get to her. He lifted his body with Tk, tried to get himself upright. Pain blocking him again. Then a hand on his shoulder.

"Stop it. You'll hurt yourself. Judd is still flamed out from trying to heal you. Your other friends, the Arrows, should be here soon."

"Arrows?" How did Xavier suddenly know these things?

"Aden and Vasic. Judd called them to help, too. They provided the equipment you're currently monitored with and a lot of other stuff I've never seen before."

Kaleb tried hard to take all of it in to get his mind back on track, but the panic and fear for Alja almost strangled him from inside. And then he felt the pressure of a familiar presence against his shields, oily tendrils trying to sneak in. The DarkMind had been attracted to the kind of emotion that raged through him like a brutal, unforgiving storm.


	64. Chapter 64

**Chapter 64**

Alja tried to be calm. She had lost track of time. She must've slept once or twice. Before they'd told her they had to relocate her. She had talked to Alice again. And to Sascha. She tried as hard as she could to focus on, hold on to the hope her conversation with Alice had given to her. But she found herself distracted by her own emotions and the thoughts she didn't want to think. The picture of small Psy bodies being whipped off their feet by a vicious lash of Tk broke into her mind again and again. And being blindfolded made it impossible to focus visually on anything in the physical world. They'd said it was only for a few minutes while they brought her to a safe-house outside the den. Only then she had learned how deep she'd been in SnowDancer territory. She had been _inside their den_. What the hell had Kaleb thought? Again memories were about to break in and pull her under, the healed fissure in her personality threatening to crack open again. The residual imprint of her victims, it wasn't gone, it had just been muted, soothed by the connection she finally allowed herself with Kaleb. But it was still a fragile one, now severed by distance and uncertainty. Already she could hear the soft swell of their voices whispering in the back of her mind. But just then she felt gentle hands remove her blindfold.

"I need to check on your wound," Lara said. "It should be ok. But I'd like to make sure nonetheless after the transport."

Alja nodded weakly, just soaking in the other voice and presence to keep herself from falling apart, while she tuned out all the emotional tension she received from the changeling soldiers that were in the house as well. Obviously Lara had made sure once more that they kept out of her room. But she could see one of them – built almost as broad as their silver-haired alpha – stepping into the doorframe that led to her room, when a petite blonde tried to enter.

"Oh, don't even try to keep me out of there, Riley!" the blonde snarled at the soldier. "I have a right to be part of this. It's why my mate won't come home after all."

"Brenna you…" the soldier began sounding somehow careful in a way Alja couldn't quite grasp.

"Besides, Judd said I should give her a message. Or do you still believe he'd put me in danger?" The woman took another step that brought her toe to toe with the tall predator. There was a pause. Alja couldn't see what else passed between them. She expected the soldier to stop the small woman at once but he just halfheartedly blocked the doorway and moved aside as soon as she pushed at him. When she was inside Alja saw that her fingers where tipped with sharp claws. They changed into human hands before her eyes. And then back again as the woman met her eyes. Alja sensed anger worry and the smallest hint of a deep fear from the female wolf for just a second. Then the fear vanished and she approached, her hands once more human.

Her eyes pierced into Alja's and she had the feeling even though she currently hid her emotions the other woman could see right inside her. But of course she couldn't. She was clearly changeling. There was just an open defiance in her gaze that let Alja understand why the soldier hat let her through so easily. That woman was way tougher, than her petite frame gave her credit for. She wasn't as openly hostile as some of the other changelings seemed but she was also tensed, in a way that might turn out even more dangerous than the tension of the other predators, who were just doing their job as soldiers. No, for this woman there was something very personal in all of this. Brenna, the soldier had called her. Alja hadn't seen her or heard her name before. That meant she had to be even more careful about her than about the ones she already knew. But Brenna had also mentioned Alja's only current connection to Kaleb. And that drowned out all other considerations about her. "You talked to Judd?" Alja's voice was still hoarse. It didn't help to hide the blatant worry laced with hope that accompanied her question. But maybe that was what made the changeling's gaze finally soften.

"Yes. I am to tell you, your – the Councilor is alive. He's badly injured but he'll survive." Her energetic tone had turned calmer but it still held a strange bite to it.

Alja felt the relief wash through her. There was still the crushing weight of fear on her but for the first time since her injury she felt as if she could breathe. "Is there... Can I talk to him?"

The wolf shook her head. "He's not conscious right now."

"But he will be?"

"He already has been. They had to sedate him again. Judd says it would be better to get you to him soon. He is –" She tensed up again and paused as if she wasn't sure which word to use. Then decided on "worried." And Alja couldn't say whether that was because she wasn't used to refer to a Psy in emotional terms or whether the word wasn't enough to describe Kaleb's emotional state. Again she involuntarily remembered his reaction to the attack. The children… Alja shook her head. She couldn't think about this. "Then just take me to him."

"We will," Sascha answered from the other side of the room. She had silently stepped inside the shortly after Brenna. "But first we would like you to meet someone who can maybe help you with the Net."

More strangers. Alja's gut clenched. More strangers and all of them seemed to know about her, about Kaleb. How did they all know so much, when she hadn't known about the Ghost herself until a few weeks ago? Or didn't they know that? "What do they know?" _What else do you all know?_ Alja wanted to ask but she had to be careful.

"We told them what was necessary: that you're an empath and you can possibly fix the damage in the Net but you need to know how a functioning emotional Net looks like. They can provide that." Sascha's tone was as gentle as always but she had made it clear that no one here considered Alja to have the right to decide about that information herself. On top of it she was still aware of Brenna silently watching her, drawing in a breath sometimes as if she wanted to speak, to ask Alja about something. Alja waited another minute. But the changeling didn't speak to her again.

"Ok. When will I meet them?" She decided she should cooperate as much as possible. They – especially Alice – had given her some insights that might help her. But really she found it harder and harder to let any of it matter. She just hoped that they let her see Kaleb soon. She tried to believe he was ok, but every time she thought of him the sound of bones cracking, the feeling of his body giving in under hers washed over her mind. And all she could see was his lifeless broken body. Once more she pushed the thoughts aside to keep functioning.

"They'll arrive shortly," Sascha said.

And they did. This time Lara sent everyone but Sascha from the room, before she allowed them in.

The first to enter her room was another predator. Not changeling, Alja thought at once but not human either. He was as tall, as broad-shouldered, but on first glance he looked more sophisticated than the changelings she'd met so far. It was a very thin façade he wore, Alja realized. That was ok. Kaleb used that kind of mask too. She could deal with that. Behind him a woman entered. Alja was barely able to see her, because the male shielded her from her view.

"Alja, these are Dev and Katya," Sascha began to introduce the newcomers. "They're…" The rest of what she said was lost to Alja when the woman finally stepped forward and made everything else black out. Because this woman was definitely Psy and she should be dead. The fact that she wasn't meant one thing and one thing only.

_He'd found her again. _Alja's blood froze as she tried to keep her reaction in check. Her eyes lingered only a second on the woman who meant her death. Then finally her training kicked in and she went cold. She couldn't however focus her thoughts as well as usual. The stress the injury and the blunt shock were just too much even for her Arrow-trained mind. Some part of her refused to accept that it was true. Ming couldn't be so powerful, that he could infiltrate two of the most powerful changeling packs in America, set up a scientist with knowledge from a hundred years ago and control a former Arrow, who had been working with the rebellion for years. As far as she knew. What if he'd lied to Kaleb, too. What if Kaleb… No! There had to be another explanation. Ming wasn't all powerful. It didn't make sense. If he was that powerful, he would have had other ways to get to her. Except for if this was all set up to get her to reveal details about her empathy. And she had given them everything. The web of pressure and hope they'd created around her had let her forget all her training. It had pushed her into trust beyond all reason. It was exactly the kind of trap Ming would create.

Sascha was surprised. One moment Alja had been tensed, her emotional signature a mere whisper of jumbled up feelings, consisting mainly of fear laced with hope. The next moment she practically vanished emotionally. "Alja, are you ok?" she asked tentatively.

Alja didn't answer._ Deny everything! Reveal as little as possible!_ Finally some of her lessons came back to her. Only she had already revealed everything. She felt her throat close up as four pairs of eyes stared at her uncomprehendingly. And as hope faded, strange whispers awakened in the back of her head. _You will never make it. You're too broken. _

_No, no, no, don't panic!_ She couldn't afford to panic. She reached for one of the glass-needles behind her ear with Tk. They didn't know about those. Or did they?

Ming would have known. Yet she still had them. And she wasn't even hooked up to an IV anymore. No way to drug her fast enough for her not to use her powers. Why did Ming take that risk? Maybe his influence didn't reach that far. Maybe none of them knew who that woman was.

"I was just dizzy for a moment," she lied without hesitation. "Who did you say they were, again?"

She had to eliminate the woman. _Eight. _A voice, that Alja had hoped never to hear again whispered. _Another death. You won't survive another death at your hands._ But she had to. It was her only way out. Otherwise she'd die anyway. She let the needle slip through her hair and down behind her.

"I'm Dev, this is Katya," the man answered curtly, suspicion glinting in his eye. Alja knew she had to be careful. "We were told you're trying to figure out how to bring emotion back to the PsyNet. And you need to know how emotion works inside a psychic network."

"And what enables you to give me that information?" Shit, she sounded too suspicious herself. But her mind was working on several tracks at once. A part of her concentrated her pitifully weak Tk on moving the needle down behind her bed, while another held up the conversation and yet another tried to figure out the situation.

"That's not part of the bargain." Dev's tone was sharp, icy.

The woman they'd called Katya, put a hand on his arm. "Give her a break. She's been through a lot." Turning to Alja she said: "We want to help. But we can't have you know anything more than the absolute necessary. The only reason Dev and I are here is that our faces are already known by those inside the Net."

She felt! Only now, Alja realized it. The woman's expression, tone and the way she touched her partner were almost as openly emotional as the changeling's. And within all the emotion that filled the room Alja could distinguish a gentle emotional signature from her. She paused moving the needle that had almost reached the floor. "Has Sascha shown you the images I telepathed her?" What had it been that Ming had programmed her to do? Of course he hadn't told her, but a lot of Arrows had been working on finding out about the Forgotten at the time. Alja would never forget the fear she had to suppress. After Marino told her of her origins she had never tried to reach any of her father's relatives, knowing she would only bring death to them. But when she learned about Ming's raid against the Forgotten, she'd almost risked it.

"Yes. What you call veins, looks quite similar to –" Katya broke off only to have Dev complete her sentence.

" – to a network we access."

"The Forgotten network, the ShadowNet." That had to be it. Alja tried the shot in the dark, not because she was really interested, but because it might surprise them enough so she could slide the needle along the floor. Inch by inch. What else did she know about the missions back when Ming had turned Katya into a weapon? Something around that time had catastrophically backfired and Ming had been injured badly in the wake of that. But that had been over a year ago. Ming's programming didn't last that long and he couldn't have gotten back inside her head. Alja had made sure of it. She stopped the needle again. It was almost at Katya's feet now.

"Again: Not for you to know." Dev stepped partially in front of Katya as if he could smell the threat Alja posed.

"Alja, are you sure you're up for this right now?" Sascha couldn't pinpoint what it was, but ever since Dev and Katya had entered the room the tension was climbing up and she had the feeling it had something to do with Alja. She still didn't let show much of her emotion and the little she let trough felt still like a jumbled mess of feelings. But beneath that mix there was another much darker emotion. Something that didn't feel right to her senses. It didn't feel healthy. It didn't feel sane. She silently called out to Lucas along the mating bond.

"The only thing I want to know is: Are you in the Psy Net right now? I have to know, before I give up any of my information," Alja asked. She had to be sure, she didn't make a mistake.

When Dev started to speak – undoubtedly to stonewall Alja again – Katya quickly answered. "I think that request is legit. I am not in the Net nor will I ever be again."

So she had been. Of course she had. Alja was trained not to forget faces, even if Katya's hadn't looked as healthy and as happy as it did now. If there only was a way to know for sure that she was still dangerous. She could've lied about no longer being in the Net. But if she was still Ming's puppet, Alja's life might be forfeit anyway. She had only the projection left, and that wouldn't bring her very far, if she couldn't even walk. In fact she didn't even know how the people around her would react to any emotion she might project. And she wasn't sure she'd manage anything but fear right now, which could make them run or – more likely with a bunch of predators – attack her. And she was in no way physically equipped to deal with that. But she wasn't used to trusting people either, much less a bunch of strangers, who probably harbored one of Ming's spies for over a year. It had to be the Arrow way… If she was able to drill the needle into her spine instead of her brain that would incapacitate the woman and leave Alja time enough to slip into the Net and reach Vasic to get her out. She inched the slim piece of glass up behind Katya's back. _Now look what you've turned into. Assassin. Murderer. No wonder you can't figure out how to heal the Net anymore._ Her insidious inner voice whispered right before everything went to shit.

"Someone's using Tk," Lucas snarled upon entering the room. His ability to detect Psy powers being used had grown more refined since mating a cardinal empath. He immediately moved to Sascha's side.

"It's her." Dev moved so fast Alja could barely have reacted, if she was fully capable. Injured and stressed out as she was she hadn't even time to flinch before his hand closed around her throat, breaking her shaky telekinetic focus. The needle dropped to the floor soundlessly. "What were you doing?"

"Dev, no!" Sascha called out stepping forward to put a hand on his shoulder. He didn't budge.

_To hell with the risk. _She was already being attacked, Alja thought and released a shockwave of fear against her attacker.

Dev stumbled backwards with a panicked expression, but still he kept his body in front of Katya's. "What the hell are you?" Anger was now a blade in his voice. They had told him about the projective empathy. But he hadn't expected it to be so invasive, overriding every other impulse. "That woman is dangerous."

"It's her," Alja croaked. "_She_'s dangerous." She was looking straight through Dev, to where Katya was standing.

When Dev would've stepped forward again, Lucas blocked his way. "Remember, this is us calling in a favor." But he was tensed up with the same suspicious aggression.

"That favor doesn't include putting Katya at risk." But he stopped, his eyes nonetheless staying focused on Alja.

"Why would you think Katya is dangerous?" Sascha asked. Somehow she seemed to manage best to stay calm. It made sense. The fringes of her shockwave had probably hit everyone in the room. Being an empath too, Sascha would have been able to deal with it best.

"Because the last time I saw her, she had Ming's programming drilled so deep into her brain, she shouldn't be alive in- or outside the Net." The words dropped from her lips into the tense silence. It held for a moment.

Then Dev moved again. "That's it. I'm taking Katya out of here. She didn't sign up to be pulled into that shit again." He started pulling her to the door.

But she resisted. "No, I want to know. I have a _right_ to know." Steely. Determined. Not the broken woman Alja had seen in one of Ming's prisons. And to Alja's surprise Dev let her go. "How do you know me?" She stepped closer.

Alja fought tensing up at her approach. Instead she _listened_ with her empathic senses. Only traces of fear mixed with curiosity, courage and a good dose of anger.

"Tell me!" Another step closer. Alja's mind subconsciously reached for another needle.

"Katya, let it go. She'll probably just lie to you." Dev's voice had a whole different tone, when he talked to Katya, softer, warmer.

"I don't remember her. I hate not remembering. I thought I knew everything now." Her voice almost broke with frustration, Alja couldn't help but understand.

Dev wrapped his arms around Katya tightly, one hand closing around her nape. But not in a hurting way like it had with Alja's throat minutes ago. Alja remembered that kind of touch. It was how Kaleb touched her. Tears threatened to finally break now that she'd let her empathy come to the surface. And when Katya lowered her face to his chest, leaning into the touch, Alja knew: This was too detailed. Ming didn't know how to mimic emotions like this. "I saw you only a few times," she answered finally, her voice calm. No trace of the Arrow in her tone. "And you were heavily drugged at the time. That's probably why you don't remember." Alja had wondered why the woman had been medicated at the time. Ming had usually no problem to let his prisoners suffer. But probably it would have put a chink in his impression of absolute dominance, to reveal that he needed help with an absolutely airtight shieldwork. "I was allowed to see your mind, because it was my task to help building the shields for after – after he was done with you. You had his traps in your mind. They would've killed you, wiped you brain, the moment you tried any escape. They ran so deep I had no chance of even loosening them during the short glimpse I got."

"But you tried?" Katya asked directly no hint of emotion this time.

Alja had considered it; even though she was scared to death when the Councilor had requested her for her shielding skills. Just like any of the few times she had met the man after she became someone else to hide her true nature from him. She hadn't wanted to leave the woman so broken. But she'd had no choice. None of them would've gotten out alive had she tried. "No. I had neither time nor opportunity. I didn't even see, what it was he put in, just that it was thorough. But he always does that." Alja's thoughts trailed off into her own painful memories of Ming, creating a strange connection to the woman she considered to kill only minutes ago.

"So you locked me up and cut me off from the Net?" It was the worst one could do to a Psy, block his or her access to the Net that was a vital part of them all.

_Yes, the killing was never all of the evil you have done_, the menacing voice reminded Alja, _it was just the worst bit_. "Ming wanted a door, a way that could have been used in and out, so he could correct your programming whenever he thought it necessary." Alja watched Katya flinch at her words, Dev's hold tighten instantly. "I told him it was impossible. I'm sorry, I didn't do more."

"Was it? – Impossible?"

"No. I could've built in a permanent access for him." To her luck Ming hadn't known how to do that himself without constantly spending a substantial amount of his own mental energy.

"If what you say is true, you saved my life." Katya slowly turned in Dev's embrace, who looked still wary but no longer as openly hostile. It was as if Katya's gentled mood affected him too.

That was when Alja noted something else. She had found it painful to look at Sascha and Lucas. But for some reason seeing Dev and Katya together was close to unbearable. Somehow it reminded her too much of herself and Kaleb. Probably because they should have been just as unlikely a couple. "No, I didn't. It should have been impossible. It should have just given you some privacy until his programming uncoiled." She'd seen Ming's mental constructions often enough. "It should have practically rehabilitated you. Worse, it would have wiped your brain so hard there should have been physical damage. And I will be honest with you: If his work didn't finish you, mine should have in the long run. The prison I built was anchored into your brain as well. It was the only way to create such strong shields without you being a cardinal shield yourself. I thought it wouldn't matter anyway. It was all I could do at the time." Regret and disbelief accompanied her explanation.

"Turned out what you did was enough. I understand it is hard to believe for you but the secret of how it happened is not ours to tell. If you however choose to trust us in spite of it, I think we're ready to help you now if you want." Trust still was fragile between them, doubt hanging thick in the air. But Katya had decided to build a bridge. It was Alja's turn to step on it.

In the end the decision was easy: She had to grab on to every sliver of hope she could get, because she'd been running out of it for a long time. And even now she wasn't sure it would be enough.

They kept working and discussing for hours. It was obvious the Forgotten had the kind of veins that Alja couldn't find in the PsyNet. But none of them had ever heard of someone who'd been able to touch them. They involved Alice again via video call, broke down multiple walls of mistrust simply because all sides knew what hung in the balance, but in the end Alja wasn't much closer to a solution than before. Dev had even contacted another Forgotten in the process, who allegedly had empathic abilities too. "She said she can't imagine how to access those veins. The emotion has always been just there. It isn't integrated into the Net by some psychic power. It simply seeps out of all the minds that make up the Net. No one needs to influence that."

It confirmed Alja's worst fears. Either the Net or she was too damaged to build up a lasting effect with her powers. And with that realization the whispers in the back of her head grew louder again. _Look at what you do to all of them. Your Parents, Marino, Katya, Elizabeta – And now Kaleb. You don't heal. You bring death and suffering. _She tried not to listen. It got harder and harder. Kaleb had stabilized her during the last weeks, but right now despair was closing in on her. And he wasn't here to stop it. Even though he might be alive, something inside her insisted she had lost him – in more ways than one – and it made her fragile peace of mind crumble to pieces. _You've turned into the opposite you were supposed to be, when you killed. It broke you. You're too damaged to heal the Net. You're not a cure. You're a disease. _She wished it was still the little voice whispering to her. Wished she could separate her self from those thoughts, discard them as madness. But she couldn't. They were her own and they were so damn logical. It had to be true, after everything she tried she should've found a way by now. And she couldn't justify tainting everyone around her with death any longer. She wrenched the thoughts down with iron willpower. She purposefully risked a split in her soul again just to stabilize a little longer. But it was too much. It wouldn't hold for long. And paradoxically it would be Kaleb who tipped the balance in the end, because he was the one sacrifice she wasn't ready to make.


	65. Chapter 65

**Chapter 65**

Hawke breathed in the cool evening air, let the gentle breeze whip through his fur. He had agreed to let the cats handle the situation with Alja today since they had the closer ties to the Forgotten, who might be able to shed new light on the process of bringing emotion back to the PsyNet. He was running patrol in wolf form in the outer perimeter instead, securing their territory stayed unbreached. It was just what he needed now. And he was damn glad for the distraction from the tension at the safe house close to the border to the cat's lands. Yeah, it was a true relief that he could share that mess with the cats. Just when he thought his head was beginning to clear for good, his changeling hearing picked up someone stomping through the woods close by. The footsteps were clearly human, their creator either unable to muffle them in the slightest or he didn't care if he was heard. He sneaked closer to the noise – to see one of his worst nightmares taking form.

He retreated silently and tracked down the other guards in the sector. Indigo. Drew. Riaz. Two lieutenants and the pack's tracker. Good. They wouldn't act stupid. And Riley was back at the safe house. Also good. He could take over the pack if this turned to shit. When he reached the soldiers he only shifted for a few seconds telling each one the same: "Stay in wolf form and leave the animal in charge." That way their minds couldn't be picked up by telepathy. "But whatever happens. Don't try to intervene!" He infused every word with the dominance of the alpha he was. "If the situation gets out of control, get back to the den and evacuate."

After that he sent silent a caress down the mating bond. He didn't dare to do more. Man, Sienna would be pissed, if he got himself killed. It was a bitter thought. But this was his responsibility. So he stepped out of the shadows to greet the man who kept causing so much noise, it was clear he wanted to be heard, and walked into something that might has well been a concrete wall. Strong Tk shields – just as he'd expected.

The man didn't waste time on pleasantries. "Where is she?" Hawke was surprised for a moment when he heard the brutal edge in the man's voice. That was not how Psy usually talked.

He knew he had to try to handle this on his own. But damn couldn't Judd have told him more about the whole fucked up situation? _Keep her alive, _he'd had said, _for the sake of your mate's race_. "We have to talk about this. You might be a threat to her." The next moment his back slammed against a tree trunk, invisible fingers closing ruthlessly around his throat.

"I'm not here to talk. Take me to her at once or I'll start ripping apart the mountainside until I find your den."

"You might hurt her in the process," Hawke forced out through his constricted larynx. He also realized he still wasn't dead. So the other man needed him to find her. He wouldn't risk hurting her after all. He had to play this right. For Sienna. For the pack. For the Psy who had helped them.

"I would never hurt her." It was a growl "Now. Where. Is. She?" With every word the grip around Hawke's throat tightened. Stars began to dance before his eyes. "Tell me now, or the blonde wolf will never see her mate alive again."

_Keep her alive_ … But the price was probably becoming too high.

* * *

"Why are they all leaving?" Alja asked the two wolves that had arrived at the house suddenly, steaming with far more than the usual tension. The house and the area around it had been buzzing with changeling minds and emotions that were hard to ignore, even when she didn't scan for them. Now they were all increasing distance, even the healer. Those two were the only ones that stayed. One was a woman, long legged, graceful, her hair a sweep of black down her back. The other was a man, not as bulky as the others but still exuding a raw physicality that made Alja almost as uneasy as his eyes that kept changing from blue to copper and back all the time. Both were clearly soldiers and their stance told her they were at war.

"Because you have a visitor," the male forced out through gritted teeth. He looked positively feral.

Seconds later Kaleb stepped into the room, followed by the wolves' alpha.

His presence hit her like an electric shock, everything else blacked out for a moment. Then she really saw him – and wondered, if she'd have recognized him, if she hadn't been focused on nothing else for the last two days. And it wasn't because of any injuries. His face was miraculously bruise free, but it had taken her a moment to realize that he was shirtless. His torso seemed to be a single violently blackened bruise that should have made it impossible for him to even walk upright. But that wasn't the most striking change about him. It was his gaze. It was savage, brutal, not a trace left of the sophistication of his usual mask. And with the physical mask the psychic had gone as well. Power seemed to sizzle all around him in a dark storm that promised danger and destruction. But not for her. When his gaze met hers it became clearer, the violence vanishing. And those eyes that had once been so remote – it seemed a lifetime ago now – they were now focused on her as if she was the only thing that existed. She felt the pressure of that focus with her empathy too. She couldn't speak. Too much crashed in on her. She had held up this long. But now she felt her composure crack under the pressure.

He came towards her bed but stopped for a moment outside her shield radius. It was as if the whole scene froze in place for a second. Everything seemed to slow down.

"I thought I had given clear orders," Hawke barked at the two soldiers, obviously furious.

The response from the woman was equally infused with emotion but hers was filled with a stubborn, angry loyalty. "Not happening. Riaz got back to the den. We're not going to leave our alpha." Her hand interlinked with that of the male soldier, who immediately stepped close enough so their bodies touched.

An actual growl ripped from the alpha's throat. It made Alja snap back to functioning temporarily. Why did Kaleb hold his distance? She realized she couldn't be sure what they really knew about him. She mustn't break in front of them. She had to protect whatever was left of his secrets. So she chose the careful approach. "Councilor, I didn't expect you to come in person."

That moment Kaleb's face finally relaxed to crushing tenderness. "It's alright Alja. They know." His voice was rough but completely gentle as if a wrong tone could damage her. And he finally reached out with his arm into her shield radius. She felt him push at her shields with some use of Tk. It was natural to allow it at once. Only then he stepped fully inside her shields. Close enough to touch.

And she broke. Completely.

She could feel herself simply fall apart in a way she hadn't done during training, not after her missions, not even as a fear-drenched four year old under Ming's torture. It was as if someone had turned a switch in her. Tears welled up and spilled so fast she didn't even have to blink. Her whole body started shaking with the panic, desperation and finally relief she'd held down since she'd regained consciousness. "You're alive!" Only when the words were out did she start to believe it.

"It's alright," Kaleb repeated. "I will make it alright." He bent down to her bed, one hand coming to rest gently around her waist, the other closing around her nape as he touched his forehead to hers.

"Kaleb, …" It came out a sob. She wanted to say so much had to talk to him so badly, but all that came out was his name: "Kaleb, …" and then "You're alive!" again and again as if she had to repeat it to make it real.

Kaleb hadn't thought a clear thought from the moment he'd woken the second time. Even now everything seemed drowned out by that choking emotion that threatened to eat him up from inside only letting him react on impulse after impulse directing him toward one single goal: Getting to Alja. But now that he'd found her, slipped inside the soothing waterfall of her shields, he felt something else, but this feeling didn't come from inside. It came from her. Her projection was slipping out. He knew they were her emotions, because they were laced with defeat and guilt. His own feelings were of a much darker, more aggressive brand. He was still barely able to contain them. But he could feel her desperation now too and it fucking broke him. He had to make her ok again. He had to, no matter the cost.

_He is alive. _Slowly the knowledge began to sink in as Alja felt him touch her skin. His thumb brushed over the side of her neck, his hand caressed her side so lightly she felt more heat than touch. The sheer gentleness of the touch seeped into her skin, slowly warming her up from inside until the fledgling recovery was broken by Hawke's growl.

"You got what you wanted. Now give us Judd."

Kaleb didn't move an inch but Alja could see a body appearing on the floor beside her bed out of the corner of her eye. She straightened as far as her injuries would allow and turned her head. Judd Lauren's body lay lifeless on the floor. Horror uncurled with icy spikes inside her. "What have you done?" The shock didn't allow her more than to whisper.

Beside her the female wolf dropped down to her knees and put her hand on Judd's neck. She nodded just as Kaleb answered her.

"I didn't do anything. He's just flamed out. Otherwise he is unscathed."

"Which might not have stayed that way, if we hadn't brought _him_" Hawke focused his gaze on Kaleb, unveiled bloodlust in his gaze. "to _you_ fast enough." Then the alpha suddenly looked at her as if she was responsible for all of this. And the feeling that she probably was started creeping up her spine like a snake. A cold, insidious reminder of what she'd become.

"What…?" Before Alja could finish another question she felt Kaleb push for a teleport. She didn't flex her shields this time.

"He threatened Judd's life and that of practically every inhabitant of ..."

"Stop talking!" Kaleb snapped at Hawke, his voice a frighteningly good imitation of the changeling's earlier growl. He couldn't let the wolf upset Alja even more. Turning towards her his tone became softer but he still sounded strained, barely in control. "We need to leave now, Alja. We have outlived our welcome here." He had to get her out of here before he lost his mind completely. And those stupid animals didn't help with their open aggression. The only thing that kept him from killing them right now, was a strange sense of wrongness in regard to it that he felt somehow _from_ Alja. But this wasn't projection. It was something else.

"You can bet you have," Hawke heard himself mumble. He bit back the other words he wanted to scream at the bastard: _Now get the fuck off my land and never set foot on it again!_ It wouldn't help. Not now. And he hated that.

With a last glance at the changelings, who were all but killing them with their eyes, Alja finally allowed Kaleb to initiate the teleport.


	66. Chapter 66

**Chapter 66**

She barely took in the room he'd brought her to. It was unfamiliar, probably a military location judging from the empty concrete walls. But the bed was soft and comfortable. Kaleb sat down on it against the wall and cradled her against his chest. She simply wanted to bury herself in his embrace and never let go, never even think again. She drew in his scent of electrified darkness that usually made her feel so safe. But the pictures of everything that had happened kept tumbling through her mind, stirring the voices inside her. And Kaleb hadn't said a word since the teleport. He just held her with a tenderness that should have been impossible given the fact that she could feel his whole body tensed up to unrelenting steel. Even though it hurt in her chest and shoulder she twisted in his embrace so she could look at his face. His gaze was locked on the empty wall in front of him, his expression unreadable except for the fact that his teeth must hurt under the force with which he clenched his jaw.

"Talk to me!" she whispered.

"Now's not the time Alja. You have to rest. You have to get well." His face barely moved as he spoke.

"But the children!" she began as the full impact of what had happened hit her again. "Oh God the children!" Again sudden tremors shook her body.

He held her a little tighter but answered mechanically. "They were programmed so their minds were basically inactive until right before the attack. That's why we didn't sense them approach."

"Kaleb what happened to them?" She couldn't even hide the naked fear in her voice.

"Aden has the Squad already on it. We'll find them." Determination in his voice but still no other reaction.

So he didn't know. That was bad, but not as bad as the alternative. And Ming obviously hadn't disposed of them right on scene. Of course not. He wouldn't waste the Arrows in training. That meant there was a chance they were still alive after all.

Still the answer was not all that Alja had wanted to know but she couldn't bring herself to inquire further. Not when she had just gotten him back. And not when it was clear she didn't even truly get through to him. She uncurled her fingers on his chest intending to stroke him to get him to react. His skin felt strange – too smooth, as if it was stretched tight. When she looked down she saw her fingers almost white against an ugly, splotchy mix of purple and black. And a new wave of horror hit her as she identified it as the color of his skin. Yes, she had seen it before! How had she forgotten?! Barely able to move due to her own injuries she struggled to get upright and away from his chest that must hurt like hell even with the slightest touch and should have made him scream with pain as she lay pressed against him with her whole weight.

His arms could as well have been steel bars. "You _have_ to rest Alja," he repeated, his eyes still trained on the opposite wall.

"No! Let me up I'm hurting you!" How was he even managing to hold her with this… – then she remembered how she had to allow a subtle amount of Tk ever since he'd entered her shields in the wolves' safe-house. Outrage and worry slammed through her as she understood. "You're holding yourself upright with Tk?! Are you insane? You have to lie down immediately!" He didn't move. "Damn it you're hurt!" Tears choked her voice and that was what eventually got through to him.

He blinked. In his mind fragments of thoughts clicked together again. Alja was here. She was safe. She shouldn't hurt anymore, shouldn't cry. Finally he looked at her. And saw his Alja – angry, desperate, but alive – full of life. And even battered and injured she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. And she looked completely devoid of understanding his need to care for her.

No that wasn't it.

More conscious thoughts filtered through his brain at last. She cared for him too. That was why the idea of pressing on his bruises horrified her. As if that mattered… But it mattered to her. "Ok. I'll lie down. Can you lie on your right side?"

She nodded, felt his Tk stir within her shields, allowed him to gently lift her body and slide his own down until he lay on his back.

"Rest your head on my shoulder. The left isn't hurt that badly." He wanted her as close as possible.

Observing that the skin on that one looked only slightly bruised and realizing he'd probably hit his limit, Alja obeyed.

"Now sleep. We only have a few hours before we have to act again. We have to be functional." That was something she'd understand. Kaleb wasn't above using Alja's training as a soldier to get her to rest. And it made her comply. Not that he had any intention of sleeping himself sometime soon. He had to deal with a war. His injury and the search for Alja had cost him almost three days, in which he wasn't able to do any planning due to being first unconscious and then distracted to near insanity by his fear for Alja that had overridden every conscious decision, every rational impulse. His personnel had kept his business and the war preparations running during his absence but even they were not used to sudden disappearances that lasted longer than twenty-four hours. But he allowed himself one short moment to calm down a little. Buried his face against Alja's hair, breathed in her wildflowers and rain scent to convince himself she was really there, really safe in his arms. Then he dipped into the PsyNet to show the flawless presence of a Councilor.

Alja left him just enough time to sort out the most important things via his connections in the Net before she woke and caught him at once.

"You didn't sleep, did you?" she asked propping herself up to an almost sitting position on her uninjured hand, ignoring her ribs that protested against being moved.

"No." He admitted. "I was unconscious for almost two days. I can't afford to lose any more control." He maneuvered his body to a sitting position too.

There it was again: Control. Alja thought. She had recovered enough to remember she hated that word. "I understand. But your injuries must have been severe." The sight of his bruised torso wouldn't let her forget again. "I thought you were –" _dying. _She couldn't even say it. The voices in her head were already whispering of death constantly. She couldn't talk about it too. "And it was my fault. I should have been able to open my shields in time." And it hadn't been her wound that incapacitated her. It had been the look on the boy's face that had completely overridden her training. For once Alja wished she had been able not to feel so much, not to be affected so deeply by it. "I'm so sorry I was too late."

"I should have thought of that before. Maybe we can construct a lock mechanism and you could give me a key to your outer shields for such emergencies. They won't get to us." He told her the first thing that came to his mind to gentle her. Because her guilt it tore at him even more than his own. He couldn't have her suffer. But he also couldn't let emotions distract him now. Nonetheless he reached out and stroked his fingers softly across her cheek unable to stop himself.

"Do you hear yourself? We were almost killed!" She shook his hand off and bored her eyes into his. Why was he suddenly trying to act all Silent about it again?

"But we weren't. And I won't let anything like that happen again. If you can give me that key, I can get through your shields fast enough to even teleport you out of the way of a bullet or out of an explosion." When he heard his words, he realized it didn't sound very realistic after all. His mind was only focused on getting Alja to calm down. But neither touch nor words seemed to help.

"Yeah sure, and I could make our enemies weep over your dead body!" she snarled sarcastically. But it barely covered her desperation. She hadn't even wanted to say it, but those annoying whispers in her head had grown stronger ever since they had been attacked, made it hard to think with her usual calm, made it hard to think past those choking emotions. "Don't you see, they've already gotten to us? It's just luck we're not both dead. They leave us no way out. We have no opponent to fight. That was why Ming is called a master strategist. His plots work even if you can see through them."

Kaleb wished Alja would just stop talking. He knew all of it and he didn't want to hear it, because the realization tore at the confines of the monster, at the basis of his sanity like nothing had since he was a teenager. He just couldn't stand being so close to being powerless after having avoided exactly that ever since he'd escaped the grip of Santano Enrique. But of course she wouldn't grant him that mercy.

"He always finds and targets the one weakness in his opponent and he always stays behind a safe line. We can't get to him as long as the Net is too instable to tolerate his death and I won't be able to do anything to stabilize it as long as I have to run and hide. We're stalemated. But he's not. He can try again and again." And he would until he got to Alja. Worse, he obviously no longer cared if Kaleb's life was collateral damage, even if it threatened the Net. Because Kaleb's death would devastate the Net just as bad as the death of any Councilor at this point. Maybe even worse. "You wouldn't have been hurt, if it wasn't for me."

"We're at war. Sooner or later they would have tried to come for me. We made it out alive. It's all that matters." Cold hard words despite the attempt at warmth he tried to put in them.

Yes, it would have been all that mattered, Alja thought. Before. Not now. There finally was a price Alja wouldn't pay to survive, a price Alja wouldn't pay even for one last chance at healing the Net. But she stayed mute. She knew he wouldn't listen. He just went on trying to calm her.

"Aden and Vasic stuffed me with Arrow tech. You know how good they are. There probably won't be any relevant lasting damage." As if to prove it he lifted his arms, almost without using Tk.

Instead of helping her to see he was alright it made horror spread across her face, as she got an even better view of not only the bruises but also of the barely closed cuts and scars, where broken bones had protruded through his skin. "Yes, I know exactly how good they are, but I also know the limits. Your body needs time to integrate it, heal around it. Most of it is just a temporary bridge for the time your body needs to replace the damaged tissue." She couldn't believe it when he started to teleport in pieces of clothing and began to dress himself.

Although leaving Alja was the last thing Kaleb wanted to do, he also had to do something to regain control over the situation. "I'm ok. Judd helped too. He has abilities I didn't know of before." He said casually, obviously trying to play it down.

She would've laughed at that stupid male way of playing things down, if the situation wasn't so grave and if it hadn't reminded her of something other than his body that seemed to have been broken in the attack: his psyche. "Is that how he flamed out?"

"Yes." This was not where he wanted the conversation to go right now. He had to concentrate, to function. He was about to get up, when Alja's shields stopped him. He stared at her. "Alja I have to go out there and cut our losses."

"I know that. But we have to talk about what happened." And she was no longer sure if she didn't want him out there for fear of him or for fear of everyone else.

"Later," was his only response, while he tried to lift himself again. Damn, he couldn't move enough without the use of Tk. And currently Alja blocked him from anything other than stabilizing his spine.

"No." Finally the lid in Alja's mind tore off and the thing that had been eating away inside her started to boil up. "You're not going out there in a mood where you use your best friend, probably your only friend, as leverage and threaten innocent people." It came out just as angry and worried as she felt.

"I'll do whatever is necessary to protect you." The words were cold, frighteningly determined. And that was exactly what he was. And not even Alja could stop him from following up on his statement.

"Kaleb this isn't you." Alja felt sick at the imminent truth she had tried to ignore for the last few days.

"I had to get to you. I had no choice," he lied. In truth he hadn't even been able to think past his fear, hadn't even been able to think about choices.

"Yes you had. You could've found another way. You don't threaten or hurt the innocent or loyal. Judd falls definitely in the latter category. And he saved your life. Just as those changelings did mine. They helped me a lot when they had no reason to trust me." She was getting to the inevitable. Too soon, she thought. She would have liked to keep him just a little longer. But oh those voices, they wouldn't let her. And weren't they different? Didn't they sound younger? Almost like – children. She tried to listen harder to their insistent whispers she had learned to ignore so well over the years. "And you hurt those children. If I hadn't used my shields you might've –" she broke off unable to say it, once more unable to speak of death.

"I had no time to think of another way. They almost killed you as it was!" She couldn't do this to him, not now, was the single threatening thought that shot through his mind.

"And you too," she whispered and that was the almost the worst of it. Almost.

"It doesn't matter." The empty look returned to his face. He tried to shut her out at all costs.

"Yes it does!" she screamed. "Because I care for you too. And I know you wouldn't have wanted to have those children die. They were innocents."

"_I_ only care for _you_." His eyes were piercing hers, forcing her to see the truth in that statement.

"That is not true. I know it's not." She stubbornly insisted on that code of honor, of moral she knew to be his. Her voice was already choked by the tears she tried to hold back.

"Yes it is. You just don't want to see it." Had she really been able to ignore what he'd been telling her from the start? "I told you, I'm not good, Alja. I fucking told you over and over!" Against all his attempts to contain it, his anger and gut deep disappointment finally broke free.

"No," she whispered. He couldn't be gone that far. Because if he was, there was only one reason and only one solution. "I know you have a conscience. Even under Silence you always followed it until now."

"It's what you wanted to see. But the truth is there is only you. There only ever will be."

"No," she repeated mechanically. Everything in her refused to believe it, even though she saw his face turning to stone with every second that passed. "You wouldn't go that far."

"To protect you? I would go however far it takes." Ruthless determination coated every word. But his eyes weren't filled with the distance and cold of a psychopath, they were filled with a fear fueled cruelty that shone like a hot blade aimed at her heart. "And yes, –" A trembling pause before he finally said the words that wrenched the blade into her heart so deep it dealt the deathblow to the fragile hope she'd been nurturing – not only for him, but for herself: "Yes, I would have killed those children, even if it would have cost me all that's left of my soul."

Alja stopped breathing from one second to the next. It was as if the words had cut off her air supply. She had to look down, avert her gaze, unable to bear the truth she saw in his eyes. Raw, physical pain spread in her chest. Her heart could've stopped then and there and it wouldn't have been any worse, because: "That is a price I am not prepared to pay." Toneless but final words.

Kaleb suppressed a shudder, when Alja lifted her lashes at him again. The tears that had been swimming in them were gone, the stars suddenly more distant than ever. They even seemed to be growing in distance. They started to fall away in that eerie motion again. It only made him want to hold on harder to the control he was losing. "Well, good thing it's not yours to pay then. It's mine and I'll pay it gladly."

Alja flinched at the hardness she saw on his face. Had she been too infatuated with hormones to see what he really was? No, she'd always known it. She'd seen that potential in him all along. And she'd fallen for him in spite of it, because she'd also seen the potential of good inside him. And not only the potential. She'd seen that core of honor and goodness over and over again in his actions. In the way he took care of his people, in how loyal he was and how he rewarded loyalty. She'd witnessed his struggle, the pain it cost him, but also his success in resisting stepping on any of the dark and rotten paths his teacher had laid out for him to take. Until now.

When he'd said he would have killed the children, there had been no trace humanity left on his face. And it hadn't been brought on by lack of emotion but by too much of it. After a lifetime under Silence Kaleb wasn't equipped to deal with the onslaught of emotion Alja swamped him in. Silence hadn't turned him into a psychopath, _she_ had. It was her alone who disrupted that code of honor he'd held on to so far. It was her who made him betray the conscience that lay at the very core of his being.

And that was the terrible truth she'd been hiding from ever since she'd elicited the first signs of emotion in Kaleb: She hadn't been wrong about him. She had only been wrong about herself. She had been drugged up enough by those feelings to believe that _she_ wasn't the broken cure she knew she was deep inside. For a brief period of time she'd been able to believe in hope again. But it would never work out. Because _she_ was the one who left a trail of dead bodies, a trail of innocent victims wherever she went. And yes, of course she would hear the whispers of those children too. Ming had sent them for her alone. They'd been hurt, maybe killed after all, because of her. They weren't like the reproachful voices of her victims. They were much worse: Softly crying, begging her to make it alright, begging for the love they'd never gotten, the love none of her race had gotten for over hundred years. The love _she_ should have brought back to them. Suddenly that whole weight pressed down on her. It seemed as if the whole Psy race started whispering inside her battered mind. And between those whispers one little voice she knew only too well was growing louder – and it was worse now that she could no longer pretend it wasn't her own. It started reciting the list again: _Your father, your mother, Marino Ghetty,_ followed by the names of all the targets of her missions – seven names, seven lives, seven deaths, burned into her soul forever – concluding with _Arthur Lightwing, _and then _Elizabeta. Everyone who ever gets close to you dies. And now Kaleb. _You_'re tainting him with the disease you are. You're tainting everyone with the disease you are. You're not their cure. You are their disease._

And finally Alja heard the truth in those words: She hadn't helped Kaleb to crawl out of the abyss his teacher had thrown him in. She had pulled him right back with her – literally and figuratively. He would have killed those children, not because he didn't care but because he thought it didn't matter for him. Because he thought he was pure evil already. Because she had made him believe she was worth more than his soul. But she wasn't. She couldn't heal the Net. The one thing that had kept her going for so long, the one thing she had justified her existence with, it slipped further out of reach with every minute. She had no right to hold him anymore, no right to taint him anymore with her influence. She pulled her shields back, setting him free.

Kaleb almost broke under the weight of endless sadness and pure defeat that spread over Alja's features. It hurt. He hadn't known just looking at her could hurt him so much. The desire to make it right was a fiery storm burning him from the inside. But he knew only one way to do it and that would involve a lot more of what would hurt her. "I have been trying to be good Alja. But only for you. I can't be more. And I will save you even if I have to make you hate me!" Nothing civilized was left in his voice. She no longer expected it.

"The thing is you can't. You can neither save me nor make me hate you." But at his words an idea sparked in the back of her head, a solution she just had to take hold of… He couldn't make her hate him. But she…

"Because you refuse to see what I am." A faint hint of hurt of deepest betrayal that Alja couldn't quite understand, entered his voice.

"No because it's not," she replied defeated. "This is not who you are, Kaleb. It's who I am making you into."

_What?_ Kaleb went mute for almost a minute, staring at her in disbelief. He didn't even know what to say. "This is a totally irrational idea..." was the first thing that came out.

"No it's not. Its' probably the most logical thing I've ever said. I am your weakness, but not in the way you thought…"

"You have nothing to do with it. Stop taking the blame for my actions! You're not making me any better by this!" Kaleb noted he was starting to speak out of anger. He couldn't help it. She couldn't do this to him now. She couldn't take back her faith in him, even though he had never deserved it. The place in him where he had hoped she could love the monster suddenly felt so empty he could only fill it with rage. He tried to breathe past it.

"You're right: I'm not making you better. But I refuse to be the reason you're turning into the monster you always feared you were."

He had heard her words but they seemed so absurd, so anathema to everything he knew about her, they didn't get through to a point where he truly understood what she was telling him. He didn't even know what to answer.

Alja didn't need empathy to guess what went on inside Kaleb. It was visible on his face and she'd seen it often enough, had experienced often enough herself: The confusion, the urge to make it right, to integrate the facts that just wouldn't fit to result in something whole. And even injured, angry and at the end of his resources he kept trying. Just like she had – until now.

Both of them had tried so hard. They'd done everything they could. They tried finding new ways and fate just kept slamming doors in their faces. But suddenly the urgent desire in her, to try just one more way, was gone. Because she had realized one thing: it would never be enough. Theirs was a world where Psy could no longer win. Their race had decided against happiness a hundred years go. And now they couldn't simply get it back by starting to feel again. All the Psy who had made it had done so outside the Net. The Forgotten, Sascha Duncan, Faith Nightstar, Judd and Sienna Lauren, even her fellow Arrows in Venice although they were still struggling. All of them were outside the PsyNet.

_Outside the Net. _That reminded her of something. _The person I am to help is not to be found in the Net. – Maybe you need to look outside then. _Kaleb had that person to save, the one the NetMind had told him to find. His destiny had always been someone else. A purpose from which she had distracted him too. She had been too focused on what she believed to be her task: _Trust him_, the NetMind had told her. But all she'd ever done was make _him_ trust _her._ _And you can't be trusted. You don't even know which parts of you are you. You just derail everyone off their paths. You suck them all dry with your need to become whole again. _The part of her that was splitting off again had a new disturbing edge to its voice. _Trust him._ Maybe that no longer meant for her to be with him but to trust him to do right without her. He had done it before. Something about those thoughts didn't seem right. It was so hard to focus with the voices whispering in the back of her mind, but one thing she filtered out clearly: He might still have hope without her. And she had to make him see, even if she had to do the unforgivable again. Even if she had to use –

"You won't be," he answered finally.

"What?" She had to recollect, what she'd said before, having been too lost in her thoughts.

"You won't be that reason. You never were." Kaleb felt Alja slipping away. She was still there on the bed, talking to him but a part of her seemed to be miles away. And he felt the foreshadowing of a darkness even he had never known before. Alja didn't let him get a grip of it, distracting him with her next question.

"No? Then what about the one the NetMind told you to find?"

"What about her?" A strange, hot feeling spiked without warning. But this one was different from the usual guilt.

"You haven't been trying to find her lately. Have you?" Her tone suddenly held provocation.

No he hadn't. The trail had ended cold before he met Alja. And then she had simply become the greater hope, the stronger anchor. But as she reminded him of his neglected task he suddenly felt the silver-star pendant he still kept in his pocket like an iron weight. "But I will." Right after he made sure no one would ever hurt Alja again. They wouldn't fucking dare near her again. Why couldn't he suppress this anymore? The heat filled him up, making him itch to fight physically, in spite of his injured body, making him feel like he was ready to burst.

"That was because of me too. _I _distracted you from the very purpose the NetMind gave you."

"Bullshit!" he screamed at her. He just couldn't take this shit right now. And suddenly he knew what it was that boiled inside him: Anger. So much anger it was about to make him explode. And it started to become spiked with an impossible layer of ice. Hate. I irritated him, confused him even more.

"I lied to you. I will never be able to heal the Net." Her voice filled with unusual spite.

"You don't know that! Now will you shut the fuck up and let me set things right so you can try again?" Shock at his outburst made Kaleb pause. It was nearly impossible to think through the angry red haze in his brain. He only wanted to go out and hurt the people who hurt Alja and made her think she was too broken to be a healer. But she didn't let him.

"Are you too dumb to see that I used you? I used you ever since I set foot in your HQ," she spat back.

And then it dawned on him, what she was doing. He remembered wondering, whether Alja might be a clever trap by his enemies, making him feel with her projection. He had thought he'd never be able to find out. But now he did. He was sure that all the emotions he had felt towards her to this point were his own. Because what she threw at him now was nothing natural, nothing he'd ever feel in regard to her. The realization made him even angrier, but it enabled him to push the hate out – because that was where it had come from.

He gripped her nape and hauled her into a kiss so hard it would bruise her. He didn't care right now. She had asked for something much worse.

Alja was so shocked she lost hold of her psychic focus. She tried to resist, but it was impossible. Both his hands fisted in her hair, refusing to let her move away, keeping her in fact from anything but surrendering completely. And she did. His tongue swept inside her mouth, the darkness and thunderstorm of his scent filling her lungs. The sensation sending a fire through her body that threatened to consume her resolve.

"Have you lost your mind?" The words were an angry accusation against her lips. "Why the hell would you want to make me feel this?" Not letting go of her he pulled back far enough to look into her eyes. She tried to avert them. When he wouldn't let her, they filled with tears.

"I just wanted you to let me go. Kick me out. See that I'm no good for you – or anyone else."

"By making me _hate_ you?" On his face sheer exasperation mixed with something far softer and infinitely more potent. "I could never hate you! I love you too fucking much!"

Then he just pulled her into the gentlest embrace while silent tears kept running over her face. His words had twisted the knife in her heart even more painful. It felt like she'd bleed out inside, before all of this was over. But it no longer mattered if it broke her. She had to protect him, even from herself, even from the very emotions she'd stirred inside him. "I'm sorry," she whispered touching trembling hands to his face. "It's so hard to think clear. There's just all this guilt inside you – and me too." That was at least part of the truth. "We both did horrible things and we have to make up for it, remember? We need to make sacrifices. And I thought that if I was gone…"

"I won't sacrifice you, Alja. I can't." Agony engraved itself into the stone that his face had become but he held her as gently as ever. It threw the contrast between his gentleness towards her and his ruthlessness against the rest of the world in even starker relief.

"But you have a second chance. You will find that woman you told me about. The one who is truly good." The one untainted by the darkness that had spoilt Alja's purpose. There was hope for him where there was none for her.

"You think she can replace you?" How in hell could she not know how much she meant to him? She had to feel it, empath that she was.

A thin layer of something that felt almost like anger added to the mix of emotions Alja perceived from Kaleb. "Not replace. But she can give you what you need. A purpose, a reason to hold on to humanity. She did it before. You told me."

"I need _you,_" was all he said. But his earlier words echoed in her head at the heels of that statement: _There is only you. There only ever will be._

"I'm sorry. I was just trying to find a way." But she knew she had made the right decision: She had to go. She'd just chosen the wrong way of pulling it through. It was after all hard to think with those voices whispering all the time. Why didn't they stop? Usually they stopped when Kaleb was close.

"I know." He said, stroking a hand over her hair.

She lifted her face to look at him. But she hid the devastating realization that had finally broken through all her attempts to cling to hope. "Maybe it would be best if we both had some time to think, to come down from this. You can go do whatever you need to do. Just –"

"Don't make me promise not to hurt someone. I will try to be as good as I can for you, but I can't promise you that. I will do whatever is necessary to keep you out of harm's way." That was nonnegotiable. But when her features darkened again he added: "But I think I'm no longer in _that _mood." A weak smile accompanied his words. It didn't reach his eyes.

He was trying to make light of it, calm her down. But she knew the core of all of this hadn't changed, wouldn't ever change. It would be futile to argue about it any longer. "Just promise me you'll look for that woman the NetMind showed you. It's more important than anything else." She had failed the NetMind, she wouldn't let him do the same.

"I promise." Anything to get her to calm down. "Now try and get some rest. I'll send Aden in later to check on your wounds."

But he wouldn't allow himself the same. He would go out and move his broken body with Tk until it gave out in spite of Aden's tech and Judd's efforts to heal him. Alja saw the evidence of what she did to him clearly in all his actions now. How had she been so blind before? "And after that? Do you expect me to just sit here?"

"You can come to HQ and do shield counselling, if Aden says you're stable enough." But it was no longer respect for her abilities that led him to make this suggestion. The layout was too obvious: Kaleb wanted to make sure the HQ was safe once more and then he'd have her there, as close as possible to protect her. Allowing her to do her safe, predictable work was just a front to keep her satisfied. But she wouldn't have any say in his course of action anymore. And there was nothing rational about this. She had to stop that development in him at once, even if it was the last thing she'd be doing. And she had a feeling it would be.


	67. Chapter 67

**Chapter 67**

When Kaleb eventually teleported out, Alja stared at the space, where he'd vanished for long minutes. He had just made it so much harder, but also so much clearer what she needed to do.

She had to go. She had started his descent into madness when she'd come into his life. She would stop it by leaving it. Making him hate her would have been much easier, maybe hurt him less. But it was not an option. He'd made it clear he'd never let her go. She had to find a more final way to take herself out of the equation. But she had to be careful. Her failed attempt to use her projection had shown her that she had to plan this real thorough. She couldn't just go and leave the rest of the world in chaos. She had to do it in a way that made it safe for Kaleb and everyone else, in a way that left them all a chance. It was the last thing she could do for him, for her race, for the Net she had failed in every other instance. And for once luck would be on her side. There was after all someone who would be more than willing to assist her.

She meditated for half an hour, calming herself, to get her thoughts back on track as she once had on her missions. Once she had found her determination it wasn't hard to engage her old strategies again. When she opened her eyes on the psychic plane, she was as ready as she could be to butt heads with the master strategist of the Net.

She stepped out on the psychic plane, well shielded and disguised as only an Arrow could manage, and headed straight for his cardinal bright star, that was shielded almost as well – almost. She slipped inside a few layers before she purposely triggered an alarm. It had always been the Arrows way to contact their former leader.

His response was immediate. He didn't even reinforce his shielding knowing she had no powers to threaten him but the one no Psy knew how to shield against.

"So Espérance, you decided to come out of hiding at last." The ice blade of his voice was crystal clear; the name he addressed her with confirming he had found out all about her past.

"Espérance is a helpless girl who died a long time ago," she retorted just as icily, "You've been trying to get my attention. I'm here to tell you that you have succeeded. I will also warn you that you drew Kaleb's attention, too." She had to know how he intended to manage to get rid of her without attracting Kaleb's revenge as well.

"You won't fool me. I know who trained him. Without your little empathy tricks you'd be no match for him. And he wouldn't care in the least, what I did to you."

He didn't know, it hit Alja. Ming didn't know Kaleb had broken Silence. He still thought Alja did all of it using her projective influence. Maybe she could use that to her advantage.

"You also know who trained me. A man who in his time refused the leadership of the Arrows in favor of someone weaker, because he was more interested in science than politics and power."

The shortest hesitation before he went on. "You won't provoke me Alja. That kind of trick doesn't work with me. And before you try your projection I should warn you that I have taken measures to ensure my goals can't suddenly change."

"I wasn't going to. I'm here to ask you if I should kill myself or if you'd prefer to do it."

A longer pause this time.

Ming hadn't expected her to offer herself so openly. But he caught himself fast. "Kill You? And give the rebels a martyr to pull the masses to their side? Surely not."

"I haven't been working with the rebellion."

"Maybe not. But you've become far too visible to just vanish or die."

"I'm no one to the public."

"Don't you know how they speculate about you in the Net, since you engineered those media reports?" No, she hadn't. She had believed the pictures of her and Kaleb dancing had been long forgotten in the media chaos of the last weeks. And she'd simply had so many other things on her mind. "I thought it was all part of your plan. It seems I have overestimated your planning. Well, but in the end it doesn't matter. You are here after all."

He had outsmarted her. She wouldn't be here if he hadn't. Just as she had told Kaleb: It was what he did. He created plots so intricate you couldn't escape them even if you knew, what he was doing. But this time she didn't want to escape. She just needed enough knowledge of his plans to ensure he'd only get to her. Not to Kaleb. She just had to provoke it out of him. "Really? You want to gloat over my defeat? That isn't abiding to the Silence Protocol, is it?"

"I'm just analyzing. But if you're so eager to be done with this, I can tell you exactly what you will do. – _You will_ abide by our laws."

It turned out she hadn't even needed to push. He had planned it all in such detail, Alja couldn't help marvel at it, even as he laid out a fate for her that was more horrific than any death she could have imagined. Of course her death wouldn't be enough for him. It wouldn't be enough for what she'd done either.

But what Ming wanted from her also left her plenty of room to create a scheme of her own. This time she wouldn't fail. She hadn't made it as an Arrow for almost two decades for nothing. But of course Ming didn't leave her much time. It would only take him a few hours to arrange everything. So she got to work as soon as she returned to the physical plane.

And then Alja started weaving a web that was so intricate and insidious, Ming would have been proud of her, if he ever had the capacity to feel.


	68. Chapter 68

**Chapter 68**

Sienna knew her mate was on the edge. He had been ever since Alja had appeared in the den and it had gotten even worse since Kaleb Krychek had taken her away again. Hawke's wolf it seemed was more often in charge than not lately. But she wasn't scared of the big bad predator; because of one thing she was dead certain: he would never hurt her. His desire to protect her was so fierce that it even had overridden the logical choice to involve her when Krychek had threatened the pack.

She'd been so proud of the trust and reliance they had achieved as an alpha pair, when he'd called her to help dealing with the hurt Arrow. But she had held back while Alja was in their territory, knowing it upset Hawke to have her close to danger. But when push came to shove her mate had ignored her skills completely and decided to go lone wolf, handling the threat on his own.

They'd had one hell of a fight about him not relying on her in such a situation. Ok, it had been more than a fight. She had completely lost it, when she'd heard how close Hawke had come to getting killed by that psychopath. So their _fight_ had involved some extra demonstrations of her lethal X-fire to make him see how she could have tipped the scales in an escalated confrontation with the most powerful telekinetic on the planet. A good portion of hair on his arms and chest had been singed off in the process, which she had regretted later, because she loved the feel of those. But in the end she'd made her point. She'd also understood that Hawke hadn't been able to think past the immediate threat of the situation. He'd always think of her as his mate, his to protect first. It was kind of romantic after all, so she didn't mind to continuously remind him that she could kick some serious ass herself. As she was about to now.

She had thought the make-up sex after their fight had taken care of most of the aggressive energy in his system, but the bursts of temper she received via the mating bond all day told a different story. There was more to this. And what kind of mate would she be if she didn't talk, bully or sex it out of him?

Getting to his office she heard the crash behind the closed door a second before she entered.

His desk was empty, huge claw marks scarring the surface. What had once been on it lay scattered and broken at the base of the opposite wall.

But she had barely time to process it, when she was hauled into a crushing embrace and kissed half senseless before she could even gasp. He backed her into the wall, his thigh pushing between hers his hands sliding under her T-shirt.

"Hawke stop it!" she demanded, the moment his mouth left hers to close on her neck in a biting kiss that branded her. While one of his hands closed over her breast, the other found its way down between her thighs, cupping her roughly. It worked as it always had: shattering her self-control to bits.

She couldn't let it. Not now. A mate knew when to give in and now was not one of those times. Oh, she knew it would be rough, but so good, when he was in that mood. But it would help neither their relationship nor the pack, if she let him have his way now, if she let him pull this thing to a sexual level. Hawke was beyond angry and she had to know at least why before she let him take it out on her.

He didn't listen.

"Hey!" It was a sharp command accompanied by a sizzle of cold fire just enough to prickle against the tips of his fingers.

Finally he removed the hand between her thighs and gave her some space. When she met his gaze the wolf looked back at her.

"So will you tell me what this is about? Or do you have to go caveman some more? Because I'm sure as hell not playing sexual punching bag for you." She chose deliberately harsh words to make it clear she wasn't about to be distracted by his admittedly convincing, though rough seduction skills.

He stepped back instantly, both hands coming to rest on her hips, but not in any way less possessive. "Jesus Sienna, I'm sorry I lost it. You still sore from this morning?"

"Nothing I'm not used to by now," she retorted smugly. "But it is a good thing you're mated to someone who can deal with you." His hold gentled as he pulled her back with him and onto his lap on his office chair. "So what's this about?" she insisted.

"Besides the obvious – That a fucking maniac invaded our territory right after we moved heaven and earth to help him?" Yep, the wolf was definitely still close to the surface.

"Ok, I understand you're angry. He threatened the whole pack and you didn't have much to bargain with. Hell, I could fry the bastard myself. And that's exactly what we agreed will happen if he ever comes close to us again. So what? Don't tell me your male pride is hurt because this is something your Psy mate may have to handle."

"No it's not. Well maybe a little." A dangerous smile. "And I'll have to win it all back by making you scream again tonight."

"No objection to that. But don't get off the subject. Why are you still looking, as if you want to tear someone's throat out?" The smile on his face vanished as fast as he'd put it on to be replaced by a dark confusion, she had rarely seen in her strong, confident wolf.

"Because I don't." It was a growl.

"What?" She raised her brows.

"I don't want to tear out his throat."

"Ok." She had no idea where this was going, so she waited for the rest.

"He threatened us. He put me in a position where I would have been completely powerless if not for you. And still I'm not as angry as I should be." And it tore at him. To protect the pack he had to be able to see crystal clear who the enemy was and he had to act on it. He should be plotting revenge for Kaleb's threat, just as they had done whenever a Councilor had dared trying to fuck with them. But he could no longer close his eyes to the fact, that the situation wasn't as simple as it had been some months ago.

"Why?" Sienna asked carefully, stroking the thick silver-blond silk of his hair with firm hands, anchoring his beast with the touch of its mate.

"It was so easy to think they were different from us. Even after you and your family. All of you are out of the Net. I didn't realize I still made that distinction until I saw them." It had started when he smelled the male scent on Alja's skin, seen her subtle emotional interactions with Sascha. But even knowing she was an empath, he'd been able to ignore that and all the other little signs. He'd wanted to see only the Psy soldier Alja had let them see. He had expected first her and then Kaleb to operate as cold and as logical as Psy in the Net usually did. And then Kaleb had shown up and shattered that illusion to the pile of garbage it had been. "They're two Psy in the Net and they feel just as intensely as we do."

"Even if they do, that doesn't justify what he did." But she no longer sounded as furious as she had when she'd first mentioned Kaleb's actions. Because she knew exactly what Hawke meant. Only her fear for her mate had trumped that logic inside her for a while as well.

"Doesn't it? He teleported her to Judd in the hope she'd be safe with him, but the idiot ran off to help him instead and left her with us. He thought she was alone and injured with the enemy. And no matter how I look at it, I can't blame him for reacting like he did." Before she could object again he forced out the truth that had been torturing his conscience ever since that one image had opened his eyes: "I saw the way he looked at her." And he'd seen himself looking at Sienna, when he'd thought their world was going to blow up. "And I started thinking that I don't know what I'd do, if it was you in that situation."

Sienna was silent, searching for a way to explain it away, finding none. She had noted everything about Alja as she had helped to treat her wounds; from the way she was dressed to the bite mark on her nape that would have made any changeling proud. She hadn't looked like an Arrow, hadn't even looked like someone Ming would allow to live. And for the first time Sienna wondered if she had started to make the same distinction between Psy in and outside the Net? Maybe. It usually applied.

"But it's even worse," Hawke finally continued. "I _do_ know what I'd do. I chose you over the pack even when I thought you wouldn't make it, even when I thought you were killing them. I didn't care. Not in that moment." Naked agony distorted his face as he spoke. "How am I to judge him for threatening people who were – for him at least – a bunch of strangers?"

And Sienna knew she couldn't argue with what he'd said. She was alive because of his choice. But she also knew how close to fatal destruction of everything she loved she'd come. "Those strangers happened to be your pack. There's a difference between judging someone's actions and protecting those who are yours. It's just no longer as simple as it was when the Council were the bad guys per definition. It's no longer us or them. But the world can't have people with powers like ours lose it like that." _Ours_ she'd said. It sounded strange. As if she was like Kaleb Krychek. But in that aspect it was the truth. Maybe in others too.

"I know, but I'm not a hypocrite. We were fucking lucky to find a way to stabilize you. I can't deny them their chance. Not when I have one of the most lethal Psy for a mate. Not when it has made the pack so much stronger to have you and your family." And that made their situation so much more difficult it gave him headaches.

But what he said made Sienna fall in love with him all over again. "That's what makes you such a good alpha and such a good mate. You saw the heart in me and my family and now you see it in them. You're not cold. The pack will understand and they will follow you, whatever you decide." Even if – probably even _because_ Hawke wouldn't chose the easy way out. He wouldn't paint the world black and white when there were so many shades in between. The Psy might have done a lot of harm, but her mate wouldn't condemn all of her race to a fate some of them had chosen a hundred years ago. "And maybe what Alja worked out with Alice and Sascha is already enough to help them."

"You think she really can to it?" Because under all his anger, Hawke felt the deepest worry for his mate's race too. Sienna might have found her home in his pack, but it would devastate her to see the Psy fall.

To his surprise she smiled suddenly. "After all she survived Ming too. Women who do that can do almost anything."


	69. Chapter 69

**Chapter 69**

When Aden teleported in with Vasic, Alja had already planned exactly how she was going to play this. It was a guessing game, a web of possibilities that involved a complex tangle of emotions, various layers and just as many ways it could go wrong. But emotion was the one thing she was better at than all of them. And she'd use it – even abuse it – to give her people, to give Kaleb the chance she no longer believed them to have with her.

"They have done a good job on you. I'm beginning to understand why Judd trusts them," Aden said as he checked her injuries. Nonetheless she felt the warmth of his ability flow through her chest, knitting broken ribs, strengthening the fragile tissue of her torn lung. What a waste, she thought, but she couldn't give anything away. "Do you know if he is ok?" she asked instead.

"He is awake. But his powers will need several more hours to regenerate fully. He called to inquire if _you_ were ok." He paused as if unsure if it was appropriate to ask the next question. "It is like that when you're not Silent, isn't it?"

For the first time it was out in the open. Two Arrows, two of the very people that had once only existed to protect Silence, had broken it. It didn't feel as important as Alja had expected it to. Maybe because it no longer mattered.

"That's part of it. But you know how it is in the Squad. All of us are close in a certain way." Maybe Aden would know how it felt one day, too.

"What about Kaleb? He didn't seem stable, when he regained consciousness."

Alja was fascinated at the careful way Aden said it. It wasn't only the Psy coolness, it was diplomatic and unjudging. Aden had a sense for the things in the air that were unspoken, a sense for emotion beyond the superficial appearance. And suddenly she knew Aden was one of those who would make it without the Protocol. It was a soothing thought. "He'll be ok too." Making her comrades believe it would be one of the hardest parts. They were a wild card ever since their sole purpose of protecting Silence no longer applied. Ever since Aden had started to change. But he hadn't broken Silence yet. Logic would work on him. "It is just the new, volatile situation. You have to trust me on this Aden. I fully trust Kaleb and I know what I have to do to fix all of this. But to do it, I can no longer be an Arrow." It was the one important thing: To separate herself from the Squad as effectively as possible. But it might not be as easy. The bonds of the Arrows were fueled by a loyalty that went beyond Silence.

"I understand," Aden answered to her surprise. "Judd told me what you need to do."

Yes, Judd knew about her attempts to discover a way to use her gift with Sascha and Alice. So that was what he believed. She let him.

"In all aspects that matter you will always be an Arrow. That is nothing you can change at wish. But I can release you from all your duties."

"You already did that, didn't you? But thank you anyway. I wouldn't have made it this far without you." Alja wanted more, wanted to make sure the stubbornly loyal soldiers wouldn't interfere. But it wouldn't matter in the end. She wouldn't have to fight them, just hold them back. And that was the one ability she still could perform to perfection on a cardinal level.


	70. Chapter 70

**Chapter 70**

Deep in the core of the dying PsyNet, inside the almost abandoned Council vaults, three minds blazed brightly in a conversation all of them were reluctant to have. But they had no choice. All of them were struggling desperately to retain their power.

"So you really think your plan worked?" Tatiana was still doubtful about Ming's actions. She had held back ever since their unpleasant encounter with Kaleb in the Net. Letting Ming do the dirty work, while she watched from a safe distance was fine with her. But she'd jump back on the train at the first sign it wasn't going to go off the rails.

"Of course it did. And once she's removed, we'll have Krychek back and the rebellion won't be a problem anymore." Since Alja had come to him so meekly, Ming was sure he had the upper hand again.

"Are you sure Kaleb will be on our side once her influence fades?" Shoshanna hadn't been able to find out if what Ming told them about the whole situation was true. Since Henry had been killed, she had enough to do to hold their former common territory in and outside the Net. The Council ranks were crawling more than ever with power-hungry Psy, who saw an opportunity to claw their way to the top in the current instability. And not all of them knew or cared, that killing one of the former Councilors might have devastating effects on the Net.

"He was Enrique's protégé. You know there's no way he'd have broken Silence if she didn't make him. He'll probably thank us for relieving him of her."

"Not if we weaken him publicly, as you intend to do." And Shoshanna didn't need any more enemies right now.

"You're right," Tatiana answered, finally seeing their chance in all of it. "In the end we should thank _her_ for the opportunity to get to him. He has quietly gotten far too powerful for a long time. But he will support our goals, including Silence, even stronger after what she did to him."

"Should Silence still be our goal? There are speculations about the disease being caused by late side effects of Silence. We can discard them publicly, but some of it might be true." That was one thing Shoshanna _had_ found out during her intensive research to manipulate the media.

"All the Council authorized research shows that there is a slowdown in the spread correlated with the rehabilitations," Ming countered as sure as ever.

"A slow down won't be enough." Shoshanna knew that too.

"Maybe not. But as long as we have no other solution we stick to Silence. It has secured the power of the Council for over a hundred years."

Power. It was all they ever had. So they clung to it against all evidence that suggested they had already lost the battle.


	71. Chapter 71

**Chapter 71**

Of course Aden cleared Alja to return to the Krychek HQ. Vasic brought her directly to Kaleb's office the moment her medical check-up was done, right where Kaleb could protect her. But she only allowed herself a few moments with him, before she asked to return to her own office to work. "I'm better now. I want to work on some ideas how we might turn the situation in our favor. I think I might be closer to a solution than I thought I was." The air of hope and determination she put on was almost perfect. It didn't have to be. She enforced the impression she wanted to convey with projection. A test for the real deal that would come later. Kaleb seemed satisfied, even relieved to see her so composed again.

She closed her eyes and breathed deeply when she reached her office. One last time she had to turn the most sacred emotion into a weapon. It ripped her apart. She couldn't let it. She had to hold up the projection continuously and strengthen slowly. It would take all her concentration. But she wouldn't need it for much else, only her shields. Ming would have taken care of everything else. And his people would be right on time.

So she had two more hours to kill.

She sat down on her desk, meditated once more to make it easier to focus on the strongest and probably most reprehensible projection she'd ever done. She would need all the calm and strength she could scrape up. She would have rather liked to spend the time with Kaleb, but her plan would never work if she had to hold up her façade that long, if she truly allowed herself to be with him.

* * *

Kaleb hadn't been sure if he'd be able to let Alja go even as far as her own office. Even in the few hours he had needed to ensure security at the HQ once more he'd been tempted to teleport back to her more than once, the protectiveness in him taking over almost every thought. But beyond the almost insane need to have her close to be able to control if possible every particle in the air around her to protect her, he was still intelligent and cunning enough to know she wouldn't comply with the measures of security he'd have liked to take. Yes, he wouldn't have shied back from using force to keep her safe, if he'd thought that would work. But she wasn't like the genteel creature he once sought to find so bad and would now again for the sole reason that he'd promised it to Alja. No, she could make his life damn hard by fighting any obvious restrictions of her freedom, even worn out as she might be right now. And he couldn't allow that distraction. So he had to manipulate her. He wasn't above that either. He'd decided to give her that much space when she asked to go to work in her office, as long as that was all it took to keep her quiet. If she stirred any further in the direction of danger… Well, he hadn't lied, when he'd said he'd save her, even if he made her hate him.

But then something had happened. Alja had been so totally composed, not a trace left of the deeply troubled woman he'd left this morning. Seeing her so determined, even hopeful had calmed him better than anything else since they had been attacked. And the effect didn't fade even as she left his immediate presence. He could sense her mind unwavering in her office and it was enough.

He hadn't seen her like this in – ever. When he'd left her at the secret military base in Siberia, where he'd taken them after returning from California she had been so insecure, so desperate, he had believed her to be close to breaking point again. But now she seemed confident again. He was curious what ideas she had. Of course she would find a solution, his tough, strong Alja. It was what he'd always believed. So the hope that she'd found that belief herself once more bloomed easily inside him. It was logical. For a short moment the smallest doubt crept into his thoughts. Had she really been alright? Hadn't the stars in her eyes been falling away into infinity just like this morning? Well, that probably didn't mean anything. She'd said she was close to figuring out a solution to all of this. So of course he didn't deny her, when she asked for his attention barely two hours later.

Alja stepped into Kaleb's office and silently closed the door behind her. His arms were already waiting when she turned and she let herself sink into his embrace, into the thunderstorm and darkness of his scent that had come to feel like the home she'd never had. She was careful not to hold on too tight, conscious he wouldn't tell her if it hurt where he was injured. Oh but how she wanted more! More time. More of him. She'd have given anything even for just one more night of passion in Kaleb's arms. But she had nothing left to give.

Her focus wavered for a second.

"Alja. Are you ok?" Another tendril of doubt, of almost-fear that crept up inside him.

And Alja couldn't push it back for a second. She'd underestimated his impact on her, when he was close. That voice. The way he always said her name, like she was his personal revelation. She pulled the hold on her projection tighter just to be almost crushed by the gentleness in his eyes as he looked at her. But that was a lie. She knew it, because it was her lie. Finally she regained the iron hold of her own emotions as well as his. "Do you remember when I said I was your weakness?"

He nodded. Of course he did. How could he ever forget that painful conversation that had led to Alja's nonsensical conclusions? For just the fracture of a second a question sparked up inside him where those conclusions might have led her. Then its importance was swamped by the overwhelming feeling of hope and trust in Alja.

"That gave me an idea. I can't be your weakness anymore, if we make them believe I'm gone. But they have to believe it, they have to really see it. Only then you'll be safe and I'll have the time to figure out my empathy." And then she told him what she was about to do, started weaving the strings of her web around him. _It is to protect him, it will save him_, she justified her actions to herself over and over. She backed her projection up with every bit of twisted half-truth she knew would make it stick afterward, hopefully. Maybe he'd hate her after all, when he realized what she'd done. That would make it easier for him. Or he would hold on to the hope she waved in front of him. Either way her scheme would work. Oh yes, Ming would be proud of her. It was a bitter thought. One that made it even harder to go against her nature again and fighting back the emotions that were stirred inside Kaleb by logic and everything he knew.

"Alja this is insane. You'll never succeed…" A sharp spike of fear rose up inside Kaleb. It was muted before it reached a point where it could influence his actions. But it had been enough to make him see that something was wrong. And his logical thinking still worked well enough… Because for once it wasn't his thinking that was impaired by her. It almost slipped out of his grasp again. But finally he got it. "No! You're not doing this to me again!" His shocked reply held anger and fear. He had gotten better with emotions after all, as it seemed.

"You can feel this?" Alja put more force in the projection trying to override his logical thinking with emotion. And she saw the struggle in his features that wanted to pull tight in shock, while her influence told them to relax.

Kaleb felt his resolve to stop Alja slip away. "Please, Alja!" he tried, but his voice was a pleading whisper without any bite. He might have gotten better, but he wasn't used to feeling for long. So his doubts were no match against the power of Alja's projection.

_I'm sorry. _Her mental voice whispered. He wasn't even sure if it was real. But the look in her eyes was pure regret for a moment. _I wish I had met you in another life, another world maybe. It would have been easier..._ _But I need you to trust me now._ The last words were a whisper. And she repeated them on the physical plane as well.

"Shh… Kaleb. You have to trust me on this. I'll make it alright. I will hide well. So well even you might not be able to find me. But I will come back to you. I promise," she lied. "I told you the Net won't let me die." She clung to that last hope, her belief in the Net, like a drowning man to a straw, so her own fear wouldn't overrun her. But she knew where she was going there was no escape from extinction.

Kaleb could feel the strangeness of the emotions but his resistance was crumbling nonetheless. Because this was not as opposed to his true feelings as the hate had been. This was natural. If he didn't trust Alja who else should he trust?

Maybe she was right after all. She could find a way through this, if she said so. She was most likely to cause a political uproar that was just what he needed to be done with the remnants of the Council once and for all. Something in this logic was flawed, but it barely registered in the back of his mind. He didn't care. He felt safe with this. Finally there was a simple solution. So he did what she had asked for and called the local media.

And of course he didn't even object when they came for her.

* * *

Only an hour later, TV screens all over the world filled with the same picture: A woman with cardinal eyes stepped in front of a microphone, closely followed by Psy elite soldiers who didn't let her out of their sight for a second. Many had seen her before. But something about her face was different now. And it wasn't the emotion that was publicly displayed on a face that should have been as cold as those of her brethren. No, it were her eyes. They hadn't been cardinal on the pictures of the ball. It must have been a Council secret. That it was revealed now could only imply something big. Tension took hold even of the Silent.

Then the woman started to speak.

* * *

**NewsNet broadcast 17.05.2082**

_"__My name is Espérance Milhaud. As some may already have noticed, my actions have caused some disturbance during the last weeks, open and covert. I am here today to inform the public about my intentions and remedy the damage I have caused to our great society: I have a defective genome that not only causes my psyche to reject the Silence Protocol. It also equips me with an aberrant ability that produces the same effect in other Psy. My defects have been hidden by my parents, who were both criminals, who have already been brought to justice by the Council decades ago. But because of their initial precautionary measures I was able to live and act undiscovered in the PsyNet until today. I have been destabilizing Silence for almost three decades. In my disordered state I was convinced that this was a higher quest for me. I also tried to manipulate Councilor Krychek into furthering my cause, which was successful to some extent. It is possible that I am thus responsible for some recent events of instability in the Net as well. Today I acknowledge that my actions to this day have been that of a disturbed mind and harmful to the Psy population. I take full responsibility for my faults and actions. And to negate the influence of my defective mind on the Net I hereby submit myself freely to comprehensive rehabilitation."_


	72. Chapter 72

**Chapter 72**

The camera zoomed out after Alja stepped back from the microphone to be led into the building behind her. Over the entrance she vanished through hung the words every Psy knew to fear even beyond Silence: _Center for Reconditioning and Rehabilitation_. They were going to start the process instantly.

A dozen cats and wolves stared unbelieving at the big screen in the DarkRiver headquarters even after the camera shot changed and some more propaganda bullshit was displayed. Among them were their two alphas and their mates. SnowDancer and DarkRiver had been in another strategic meeting with most of their lieutenants and sentinels to come to terms with the events of the previous days when they had been alerted to the game-changing broadcast of the Council's official TV channel.

It was Lucas, who spoke first: "What the hell are they up to now?"

"I have absolutely no idea." The words dropped from Judd's mouth in an uncharacteristically open display of perplexity. "Maybe they want to overthrow the Centers… but she was supposed to end this thing peacefully… And it's not an Arrow strategy either. It doesn't make sense."

"Can you get in touch with any of your contacts?" Hawke asked immediately.

"Only telepathically. And I'm still out of any psychic power for at least four hours."

Hawke looked at his Psy-lieutenant for a moment. The man had been many things since he'd adapted to the emotional ways of the changelings: Angry, aggressive, even tender with love and care for his mate. But one thing he had never been: Upset. But he was right now. It was not a good sign.

"That means we're blind and deaf but for what they want us to see and hear." Mercy, DarkRiver sentinel and mate to SnowDancer's first lieutenant Riley, uttered equally perplexed.

Riley who was holding her against his chest unable to let her move far from his protecting body ever since she was pregnant, looked as if he wanted to kill someone. But his hands were stroking her belly that had already visibly rounded, with utter tenderness. "Can Ashaya or Faith contact anyone else from the rebellion?" He addressed Dorian, because neither his mate, Ashaya, nor Vaughn and Faith were present at the moment. They were all at Faith and Vaughn's home because visions of death kept tormenting Faith into a state of severe illness and while Ashaya tried her best to stabilize the F-Psy, Vaughn simply refused to leave his mate's side for a second.

"I'll call them," Dorian answered quietly. A strange, silent tension had gripped the whole room. Everyone's attention was still divided between the discussion and the ongoing stream of mostly useless information blaring from the TV.

"_That she could manipulate a member of the Council to this extent can only be attributed to the fact, that Councilor Krychek has weak mental stability himself, as one of our reporters recently discovered._" The news-anchor solemnly declared. _"But we will be interested to hear the Councilor's own interpretation of the situation, as he is present at the Center, where Ms. Milhaud's case is currently processed."_ The picture switched once more to the entrance area of the rehabilitation Center Alja had vanished into, to reveal a reporter shoving a microphone at Kaleb Krychek, who was apparently waiting calmly in the wide lobby of the building. _"Councilor what is your statement to the course of events?"_ The reporter was probably only so confident because he thought a live camera would protect him from any immediate attack. Maybe he was right. Kaleb didn't look as frighteningly icy as usual. Instead he answered almost smugly. _"I have absolute confidence that my former employee acts to the best interests of all Psy. And I can assure you I have not been influenced in any way. All my decisions and actions were my own..."_

Lucas didn't get the rest of the statement, because at that moment two things happened at once. First: Hawke snorted an angry "Why does the fucking bastard act as if he isn't endangering the very woman he was ready to kill for yesterday?" Second: he felt a shudder along the mating bond and saw Sascha go white as snow. "Darling what is it?" was his immediate response.

"He might not have had a choice. We need to stop this. Right now!" Sascha exclaimed.

"What?" It sounded from various mouths at once.

"She's doing this on her own. She thinks she will protect him and maybe us along with it. I should have seen it. There was something so desperate about her but I thought it was just…" Her voice broke, trembled with panic, when she found it again. "Oh my God! He's going to lose it!"

Everyone was staring at Sascha with a total loss of comprehension for a moment, then the truth hit home. Everyone had underestimated the true potential of the projecting empath.

Into the shocked silence the dial tone of Dorian's phone sounded as he tried to call his mate. When Ashaya finally answered, even the non-changelings could hear her urgent demand: "You're calling just at the right moment. Luc and Sascha need to get here. I can't handle this alone. Faith's visions are getting worse by the hour. She needs Sascha." After a short pause she added. "And I think Vaughn might need his alpha."

* * *

Aden knew at once that this set-up could only have two possible origins: Either Alja and Kaleb had some secret design they hadn't involved the Squad in or it was one of Ming's plans. Somehow their former leader might finally have gotten to Alja. So he was surprised to find none of either of the Councilor's personal soldiers at the scene, when he and Vasic arrived at the Center. He had expected the premises to be bristling with them, protecting whatever operation was carried out here. But the area in front of the building was completely empty. The TV crews from NewsNet and even those of human and changeling media, he had seen arrive on the broadcast, were packing up.

After a quick glance at the length of the shadows around the building Vasic confirmed Aden's apprehension: "They prerecorded the broadcast. It has to have been shot about twenty minutes ago."

"Not enough time to complete a comprehensive rehab."

They both started running towards the building.

No one even attempted to stop them. That was more than strange… He tried to telepath to Vasic. Found he couldn't. "Can you port in?" he asked his comrade aloud instead. "No. She has her shields around the whole complex." Again Vasic confirmed Aden's logical conclusion.

The first armed guards they saw through the glass doors of the entrance stood before the inner doors in the foyer of the rehabilitation center. And they at least looked like the usual security personnel. Of course with all psychic activity blocked they hardly needed more. Could Ming really have gotten to Alja in a way that made her comply with this? The two Arrows had done what they could to prevent this outcome, but both of them knew it had always been a possibility that they couldn't protect Alja. In their Silence both of them stayed calm, took a moment to gather more information, consider their options.

When they entered the foyer, it was to find Kaleb sitting on one of the waiting benches, absolutely relaxed and alone. Could he have double-crossed them? A few weeks ago Aden would have thought it entirely possible. But after he had seen the way Kaleb had reacted when he first regained consciousness after the attack on Alja and him... Aden understood enough of emotion to know it was highly unlikely Kaleb would expose Alja to this kind of danger.

"Kaleb what is this? Are you not going to interfere?" Aden asked, urgency in his tone despite his Silence.

"No. Alja has a plan," the man answered absolutely unruffled.

"Rehabilitation will effectively erase who she is. Is that part of the plan?" Aden was still beyond understanding what this new development of the situation meant. But the picture that formed in his mind after ruling out all alternatives was a grave one.

"She'll come back. She can hide inside her shields," Kaleb repeated what Alja had told him over and over, when he had doubted the soundness of her plan.

"Kaleb, you know how the process works. There's barely anything psychic about it. Not for cardinals. They'll just drug her up with Jax and a cocktail of other drugs until it short-circuits her brain." Aden knew something was wrong, but when he shot his partner a questioning glance, Vasic shook his head. He didn't have a clue either.

"But Jax doesn't have the same effect on her due to her human genes." Kaleb went on. His confidence didn't waver for even a second. "They won't notice she's still there. Her shields will fool them." Alja had been so confident about it, it had to be true.

Was this what she'd told him? Of course Aden knew better. The effect of the Jax regimen in the Squad had been deemed unpredictable for Alja, but the doses used in the Centers – they would scramble up any mind, Psy or human, beyond recovery. "Her shields will be the first thing to go under the drugs. There's no way she'll come out of this."

"Yes, I know. But I trust her," Kaleb replied in that unnaturally sedate way that seemed almost… emotional.

Slowly a new picture of the events unfurled before Aden: There was no plan, no secret game behind this. Alja had told the truth when she spoke to the cameras. And it dawned on him that for the first time he might have overlooked one crucial detail in Alja's earlier medical check-up: her sanity. "I don't understand much about emotion and even less about Alja's abilities. But it is obvious that she is doing this to you." None of them had known her abilities could influence someone to this degree. Her skill was emotion-based. It wasn't supposed to have mental effects. But it seemed they had made the same mistake the rest of their race had: They had gravely underestimated the effect of emotion.

"I know," Kaleb suddenly blurted out. For a moment his face tensed and he shook his head very slightly, then the same restful expression filled his features again. "But she will be safe. We're all going to be. It's all going to be alright."

"Will you stop us from trying to help her?" Aden had to know if the dual cardinal would make it harder for them, to pull Alja out.

"No, of course not. I trust you too. But Aden, I really don't think she needs your help."

Aden was already running from the building, shouting at Vasic. "Get as many men and women here as you can, as close as possible to her shields." The moment he left Alja's shield radius he started telepathing to everyone in the Squad Vasic was able to bring in. _We're going in full force. Incapacitate the personnel. Kill only if absolutely necessary. Use earpieces or communicate via the Net to coordinate the search since telepathy might be blocked, too. From my knowledge of the facility she should be somewhere at the center of the premises. Approach from various directions! Whoever gets to her first intervenes in the rehabilitation at all costs. _

Seconds later black-clad assassins appeared all around and even on top of the building complex, invading all entrances, even crawling along the walls and into the windows.


	73. Chapter 73

**A letter left on the desk in Kaleb's office**

_Kaleb, _

_you will be on your own for a while now. And since I won't be able to talk to you for that time, I hope you will find this letter when you come back, because there are things I want you to know. You will probably be too angry at me to even read it. Maybe you will feel so betrayed by me, you retreat into Silence again, the very thing I've always kept you from. And maybe that would not be the worst solution. But I don't know. I thought for so long I did or that I would figure it out at last. But I didn't. All my solutions didn't work out. _

_But I'm counting on you not to be angry, not to hate me so much. No, I'm not counting on it, I _know_ you won't do that. That's why this will work, because I know with which emotion you will react, with which emotion you always react. It's the same one that got me in the end. And I hate myself for using that against you too. But I can't think of that now. I have to forget that now or I will never pull this through. And that's not what I wanted to tell you…_

_What I wanted to tell you is: I'm trusting in you to make it. You will have to work things out on your own from here on. And I'm sorry I'm leaving you alone with this. But it was the only way. _

_You have the Net and a woman the NetMind destined for you to save. I know you don't share my – as you put it – almost religious faith in the NetMind, but it has only ever done me good. And I think we can agree that logically it is the best source of information on how to maintain the Net. _

_There is also something else I never told you about: When it got harder for me to hold on to sanity, to believing I could heal the Net, the NetMind started telling me to trust you. And it kept telling me so, the closer I got to you. I believed for a long time it meant you would help me complete my task. But now I think it showed me that there was another solution. You told me how you can touch the Net, seal it back together. Maybe it needs emotion to hold, but there are other ways to bring emotion back to it than my empathy. Silence is crumbling anyway. So I trust you to find those ways without me, even when you're angry, even when you hate me for using that trust right back on you to make you let me go. It was the hardest thing I ever did, but giving you another chance was worth it. _

_Do you remember how I once told you how the story of my parents scared me? How I said I was scared of how far emotion can bring you, but even more scared of never experiencing an emotion so deep it's worth dying for? I'm not afraid anymore, because I found that emotion with you. _

_I love you. So much that I am willing to go, so you can have a chance you cannot see as long as I'm in the way. I love you so much and I trust you so much that I'm laying my lifelong dream into your hands. You made me feel that deep. And no matter what you tell yourself: No one _not good_ could ever do that. That is why I know you will do all the right things, all the things I couldn't, because I was too weak, too damaged or simply didn't have enough time. You won't fail where I did. I know deep down you have all the honor and goodness it takes. _

_I began this letter telling you, you will be alone _for a while_. And I thought I could do it, lie to you until the end. But I can't. I said I trust you. So I have to trust you not to kill my dream even if you know the truth. But you already do, don't you? You can feel that I'm gone and I won't come back. So there's really not much more to say._

_I'm sorry I left you the way I did. _

_But I will never be sorry to have loved you the way I did._

_Please don't kill my dream._

_Yours always_

_Alja_

* * *

**Chapter 73**

Even though she still had to concentrate hard to keep up her projection and the expansion of her shields, Alja's trained Arrow mind had taken in all her surroundings and all that had happened since she'd done her announcement in front of the cameras. Two armed guards and two Center-scientists had accompanied her through the empty, gray corridors. First they had passed the sections for mild reconditioning, rooms that almost looked like normal doctor's offices, then some other rooms with closed doors. A few times other Center personnel had exited one of them or passed her in the hallway. But there had been no visible reaction, no excitement. It was quiet in here, Silent.

_Hold the shields, hold the projection_. She repeated in her mind. There was nothing else to do. Everything else was taken care of. For the first time in a long time she no longer had to think about what to do. There was only one option, only one possible outcome. And it waited behind the unremarkable metal door with the small sign that simply read _CR – comprehensive rehabilitation_. The room was filled with technical equipment, computer screens that showed brain scans and against the back wall a treatment chair from which a labyrinth of wires led to the computers. Although Alja had never seen a rehab-room before, it made sense. A process so unnatural had to be conducted with lots of the IT the Psy had gotten so fond of. _The Psy were so sure they could do everything better with technology than with what nature provided_. Alice's words came back to her as she studied the room. But she didn't have much time before she was directed to the chair in the back, her legs and arms locked in integrated shackles. There was a short moment of almost relief as the metal braces snapped shut around her limbs. Now everything she had to do was to wait for it to be over. It would be soon.

_And then?_

The question popped up out of nowhere. Everything had seemed so clear, so inevitable to her. But now, all of a sudden she realized the last few days had been a blur. The voices had been constantly whispering in the back of her mind. And she had been too weakened to push them back, mute them, or do anything else to lessen their impact. It was as if something intangible had driven her ever since she had looked into the desperate eyes of the boy who had shot her, ever since she had felt the whip of Kaleb's terror that had hit her at the same time as the bullet.

It had been the logic of emotion. She should have been used to it but she wasn't, since she had suppressed that part most of her life. That logic was different from the Psy logic she had been taught all her life. And it had led her to this point where she couldn't quite understand her own actions. –and they were her own. Somewhere along the way that insidious little voice she had tried to split off had truly become her own, inseparable from other impulses of her personality, like the one that welled up now: Out of nowhere her survival instinct pushed another thought into her mind: She was about to lose everything.

It didn't matter she told herself. It was inevitable. That was all she had to know.

All of this would have been so much easier if she had never met Kaleb, if she had still been as broken and as close to giving up as she was right before she met him. Now the only thing that made it even possible was the knowledge that she did it for him. But she felt alone. So alone, now that she knew how it felt not to be. She had cut out her heart when she blocked the bond between them and forced that unnatural projection into him. But she'd done it for him. Yes, there was logic to it, a sad, tragic logic.

She felt a small sting as the needle pierced her arm.

Soon it would be over.

She would lose everything. She didn't want to go.

But it was inevitable.

Contradicting thoughts battled in her already fuzzy mind. The Jax worked its way through her veins faster than she had expected. She had to concentrate to hold up both her projection and her shields long enough despite of the drugs. Maybe if she wasn't so confined inside her mind…

She stepped out on the psychic plane, removed all the safety blocks on her shields. For the first time it gave her a sense of freedom instead of fear. Because out here there was nothing left to fear. The dangers of the Net paled compared to the horror that spread from her body into her mind. She already felt its pressure building up.

She just wanted one last moment of peace before it reached her fully, one last look at the Net. Even in its coldness it was so beautiful. And she was probably never going to appreciate that again. She was never going to see it change, never going witness it come to life again, never going to experience that moment she had waited for all her life. But loving Kaleb and protecting him, had been worth it in the end. She knew that in a place, that would never been touched by the brain-destroying cocktail of meds she felt surge into her cells. At that thought peace rushed into her. Some part of her knew it wasn't real. It was the emotion she had conjured up to project on Kaleb. And she could no longer separate it from her real feelings, if she wanted to keep projecting. Why hadn't she thought of projecting on herself earlier? She could have spared herself a lot of pain. But no, that made no sense, she couldn't project on herself.

It got harder to concentrate. Her projective powers slipped her control in a way that was usually impossible. It felt nice though.

Suddenly a well-known presence brushed by her. Oh nice, the NetMind came to say goodbye. Everything felt nice now. Was this how it felt for Kaleb? And what would he do when she stopped? The nice feeling faltered. And piercing splinters of pain came through to her conscience.

The process had started.

From one moment to the next everything nice was gone and replaced by a strange mix of numbness and pain that seemed to spread everywhere, her body, her mind and worst of all _inside_ the very core of her mind. Her shields were failing.

_Help me. _She messaged to the NetMind in a short burst of panic. To her surprise the neosentience answered with a strange, but somehow friendly telepathic voice.

_Ah child, what have you done now? _

The NetMind spoke. It actually spoke with a voice that sounded as clear as it was gentle. _How can this be? _She asked back.

_It's the drugs. They open your mind. _Its voice answered as if it had read the rest of her thoughts. Its tone was just as gentle as before but mixed with a note of something that almost sounded sad. _Soon they will close it again for good. _And then the NetMind showed her the same picture it had showed her a thousand times before. Veins filled with emotion that was the lifeblood of the Net. Only now she understood what it had been telling her. For a moment – before it all turned too complex, too confusing – she saw the whole picture and its terrible consequences.

It was enough to let the truth slam into her with the force of a deathblow, even as the drugs started to daze her mind: She had made a fatal mistake.

The Net would never survive without her. Kaleb wouldn't. Her people wouldn't. Because you didn't save people by walking away, not even by sacrificing yourself. The Net had come to this point because all of the Psy had separated from each other, left each other alone. Like she did now with Kaleb, with all of them. It could only have been mended, by standing together. She should have known it. But she had failed in the most final way. And she would go with that knowledge as the last thing on her mind. Shock and sheer desperation gripped her so hard it felt as if she were physically torn. But maybe that was the Jax too. She could no longer tell.

And through the endless pain the NetMind spoke again. But its voice held none of the reproach Alja had expected at her spectacular failing. It was full of understanding._ I am sorry for the pain. _

So calm. So peaceful.

It didn't fit the situation. It didn't fit anything. It should scald her for her failure, like the little voice always had, but somehow that was gone now.

No it couldn't! It mustn't! She had to get back out. She had to stop this, fix her mistake. But somehow she found she couldn't. She just couldn't get a grip on her thoughts through the blinding physical and emotional pain that surged through her entire being. Where would she go back to at all? Who would she go back to? She tried to hold on to herself but suddenly that seemed so hard.

_It's alright. No more fighting. _The NetMind said. _I try to take away the pain. Rest! _

_I'm sorry I failed you. _It was the last coherent sentence her mind formed.

_I hold you. Maybe we die together._

She still heard the voice but the sentences became simpler again almost as when she'd translated the visual communication. And then there were visuals too: Open arms welcoming her to a home she'd never had. And somehow she wanted to come, somehow she knew she had always wanted. A faint, desperate memory of Kaleb floated through her disintegrating mind before the last of her resistance crumbled away and she let herself slip into those arms. And the NetMind gathered her in its embrace, away from the pain that burned along her nerves – and into another nightmare.

* * *

Aden and Vasic ran down another long hallway. The place was all but a labyrinth. But they had to be close to the center of the whole institution by now. Alja had to be here somewhere. The closer they came, the more guards they encountered. But none of them were a match for an Arrow. Another one came running towards them when they turned around the corner. Vasic pushed at him with Tk out of reflex and the man crashed back into the opposite wall.

"Her shields are fading," he stated at once. "They're retracting in that direction."

Aden sensed the blur of a teleport and a split second later they were standing further down the corridor. Vasic was following Alja's retreating shields. Another blur beside them and suddenly Kaleb was standing next to them. He didn't speak, didn't even look at them. He just started to run down the hallway further. Then teleported some feet. Ran again. And disappeared behind the wall.

Vasic followed closely with Aden until they were stopped by Alja's shield's once more right before a plain metal door.

Kaleb's hands slammed into the door. It didn't give.

He did it again, an almost inhuman scream tearing from his throat. This time the metal budged under his palms a little. Tk started to infuse his body's movement.

But not yet enough to get through.

* * *

She only wanted back. Nothing else mattered. Everything would be better than this. She tried to rip herself free of the embrace she had sought mere seconds ago. But it did not give in, no matter how she struggled. She wanted to scream. But there was no voice for her to command, not even breath. There was nothing she could command but her own mind. And that seemed to be crumbling fast under the pressure of the other presence that was with her. She was trapped, torn apart, desperately struggling to get back to herself. But the path was blocked. Instead there was something – someone else. There was suddenly so much more 'being', more self around her. The information started to swirl, just too much to be taken in by a single mind.

_So this is how it ends. _

It was no longer a conscious thought. It was awareness beyond thought or reason. Immovable. Final.

Slowly the sensation of being torn apart vanished to the background and everything became hazy, numbed. Alja's consciousness flickered. She just came back long enough to realize she'd been gone for a moment. But she wasn't scared. Not anymore. The emotions that had been such an integral part of her being, that had once made her who she was, were gone. She flickered again. Then her consciousness slowly slid away into the vastness of a cold, star-filled universe.

And for the eighth time in her life Alja felt death. Only this time it was her own.

* * *

For Kaleb everything seemed to have gone slow motion. His senses and perception had heightened under the adrenalin that rushed him as soon as Alja's projection faded away. Every second dragged on forever, giving him time to take in every excruciating detail: The small cracks in the color on the door. The almost liquid movement of the metal just before it finally gave in to his push. And then the stretched sound of the deafening blast with which it flew open at last, smashing the two Center employees who had been monitoring the rehabilitation, against the walls. One slid to the floor unconscious, the other seemed to bump off the wall, but instead of falling forward he started stumbling away towards the door at once.

Kaleb didn't react to him. As soon as he set his eyes on Alja he focused completely on her. He sent out the telekinetic impulse that would rip the IV needle form her arm and the wires from the headband that was attached to her skull but it seemed to take forever to reach its aim. He sensed the two Arrows entering behind him, moving just as slow as everything else. But his gaze was locked on her eyes. Eyes that were staring right at him but without recognition and too big, too dark. And while the wires and tube slowly floated away from her body he saw those eyes fill with even more darkness. Pure black was pooling inside them, the stars in them were no longer moving or even trembling. They were blinking out. One by one. And when the last pinprick of light vanished, time crashed in on him again.

With a few strides he took last distance between them and reached her just as the torn-off equipment from the treatment chair dropped to the floor beside it. Frantic movement started around him as more and more Arrows streamed into the room shutting down computers and other devices, some simply by pulling plugs and more wires.

Only Alja seemed to stay in that slow motion mode. She didn't move at all but for her head that very slowly dipped to one side as if she wanted to cock it at him. But her eyes didn't regain focus. Only a gaping, endless void stared back at him.

"No." he whispered dropping to his knees in front of her, searching for any sign of her in those empty, black eyes, finding none. And worse: he couldn't sense anything that resembled her on the psychic plane as well, although there no longer was any barrier that would protect her mind from his telepathic senses. No waterfalls, no shields. "ALJAAAAAH!" Her name turned into a strangled scream of agony on his lips.

* * *

Suddenly all movement around him seemed to stop and out of the corner of his eye Kaleb saw a small monitor beside the chair blink with a notification in simple, green glowing letters: _process completed_.

Behind him Aden gave a short command to the soldiers of the Squad. His voice was calm, measured and too toneless even for the most Silent. "Mission failed. Return to your previous tasks."

And one by one the Arrows vanished the way they had come, in absolute silence, some through windows or doors in adjacent corridors, most of them via teleportation.

With a soft click the shackles around Alja's arms and legs opened. She didn't react. Kaleb's hands clamped down at the armrests, his knuckles white from the force he applied. And he knew she was gone. Felt it with blinding certainty.

And then he started to fall.

He fell like he had that fateful night a few days ago when he'd teleported into the gorge behind his home to save Alja. Only this time it was his soul, not his body that tumbled down into an endless darkness. And when it hit the bottom it would shatter into madness. And this time no one would save him. The only one who could was gone.

He kept crashing past memories of Alja, his hope, his salvation: Her mischievous smile, her laughter, the texture of her skin, her voice as she whispered sweet promises in his ear. Yes, Alja had promised to come back – snap. He could almost hear how his descent was broken by that thought. It wrapped around his crumbling sanity like a steel wire. Thin. Cutting. But relentless. And with more silent snaps the first strings of Alja's web caught his soul. He had promised to look for the one the NetMind had told him to save, he had promised to Alja – snap. Twisted as her logic might be, Alja had done this for him – snap. Alja had trusted him to make it, to find the good inside himself he was certain to have lost. He couldn't fail her now – snap. Thread by excruciating thread they held him in place, blocked his fall. It wasn't a soft hold. They cut into his soul, made him bleed inside, made him even wish for the sweet oblivion of madness. But he couldn't escape. He had to hold on for Alja. This was what she'd have wanted. This was what she'd done this for. And it was his mistake. He had to make up for it. _We have to make up for it, remember? We need to make sacrifices_, Alja had said – SNAP.


	74. Chapter 74

**Chapter 74**

Alja was gone.

The thought echoed through Kaleb's mind, refusing to feel real and yet all too real. He felt numbed and in agony at the same time. It was as if a part of him was paralyzed by the pain of losing her while his ever diligent mind could see clearer than ever. He could watch himself sitting in his HQ office, while Aden was doing something to his body. The medic had insisted on treating his injuries again since he'd torn some of them open while he had run into Alja's retracting shields. He could feel himself not care about being healed and at the same time he let it happen, because he had to function. It was all he ever had done before Alja and it was all he ever would do now. For her.

He looked down at the handwritten piece of paper on his desk – the letter, she'd left there for him to find.

It meant nothing.

It had only cemented what he'd already known. Its only purpose had been to rub it in, to pull those cutting strings of Alja's web even tighter. And it had been successful. He was left in limbo, no longer able to truly live in the sense that Alja had shown him in their short time together. But he couldn't go back to the cold state he'd been in before either. And most importantly, he couldn't let himself slide into the blissful darkness of insanity, not with the promises, not with Alja's legacy tying him to – well at least some form of sanity, to something that wouldn't let him go, that wouldn't allow him to leave everything behind.

She had even told him how she had used emotion to achieve it. _It's the same one that got me in the end._ _And I hate myself for using that against you too._ Love. He was sure she had written about love. She had used the very love and trust with which she had given him every good moment of his life to betray him. For her it was the worst kind of abuse of her powers. He understood that. And he wanted to be angry at her, if not for what she'd done to him at least for what she had done to herself. But she'd been right. He couldn't. The only anger he felt was at the world around them, that hadn't even given them a chance, right when he'd thought he'd had a chance for the first time in his life. Because as manipulative and intentional as her actions had been, she had been honest with him in the end. And she had done it out of the same love, she had used on him. Emotion just never was that simple. That was one thing he had learned from her.

But that didn't matter now. He pushed the thought away. It wouldn't help what he had to do. And what he had to do was the only thing that counted. Except for –

"Aden," he interrupted the Arrow, who was telling him not to strain his body too much. Kaleb had registered the other man's talking, but tuned it out. "I know Arrows have some ways to get knowledge that is beyond the reach even of the Council..."

"Don't go there Kaleb," Aden cut him off as if he had read his thoughts.

And for a split second Kaleb was sure he'd heard some kind of warmth in the other man's tone, the kind of warmth that reminded him of Alja. "I have to ask. I have to know for sure." His voice trembled as just for a second all the pain, all the devastation broke though the numbness that protected the logical part of his mind. Aden's response almost got lost in the white noise that crashed into his head. But he forced it down with the vicious control he had honed all his life, the very control, Alja had hated so much.

"She is one of us. If we had any indication that there might be the slightest chance to bring someone back from CR, we would be trying that right now." Aden took a short look at the empty shell that had once been Alja, but now sat unmovingly in a chair ever since they had returned to the headquarters. "I checked that she is physically fine. Let her rest. Sometimes some of the mental functions return with time." But he didn't sound as if he believed it himself.

"Are you done with me? Then get back to finding the children. I'll help you once I've arranged matters around here."

Aden just nodded and was teleported out of the room a moment later, obviously at some silent telepathic command to Vasic, who was already on the task Kaleb had sent the other Arrow back to.

And just like that he was alone. The body that was with him in the room held nothing of the woman who had made that body give him pleasure, made that body something he desired. Because her soul was no longer there. There had been some connection to her, one he wouldn't have been able to grasp a few days ago. But now that it was gone he felt its loss acutely. There was nothing left in her that resonated with him, just his heart bleeding out in to an endless emptiness, where Alja had been. And the impact of her absence was strengthened immeasurably by the stark contrast to everything else around him. Nothing seemed to have changed. The earth hadn't trembled, the sky hadn't torn. The Net lay silent and smooth as ever like a lake that had neither been touched by wind nor even a drop of water that might disturb its surface. No one had known Alja. No one had been connected to her but him. No one knew to miss her but him. All the wonder that she had been, had been a secret. Now it would be his secret alone forever.

No one in or out of the Net knew what they had lost.

But they would. Oh, soon enough they would…

* * *

Kaleb, while constantly watching her out of the corner of his eye, avoided looking at Alja directly. He tried to convince himself that it was because there was nothing left for him there, but the truth was: everything was there, everything he didn't want to feel, couldn't allow himself to feel. If he had to look into those empty eyes, he wouldn't be able to function. But he couldn't let her out of his vicinity either. So he kept her close. Since talking to her didn't seem to have any effect on her and he didn't dare touch her for the sake of his sanity either, he simply teleported her around wherever he needed to go. Her natural shields were gone with everything else she had been. So he had taken her mind close to his in the Net and encased her in shields of his own making, solid black walls, similar to the obsidian archive but even harder, rooted deep in the fabric of the Net. She'd been so afraid of someone coming inside her mind. Now he could give her that security, behind shields that let nothing come in or get out – but only now that there was nothing left to get out.

When he brought her to a new room she just stood there, unmoving, not reacting to anything around her. Only when he pushed a chair softly into the backs of her knees she would automatically sit down. So that was what he did every time he had to change location. It wasn't often. He spent most of the remaining day at his Moscow office or other rooms in the headquarters. None of the very few people who saw Alja with him inquired about her. No one had to, because by now everyone had seen the broadcast. And no one dared to because Psy were brought up to look away whenever something happened that reeked of Council intrigues like this incident certainly did.

So Kaleb kept working, functioning like he had always done.

Only at night when he had to force himself to give at least his body the hours of rest it so desperately needed he couldn't avoid her any longer. He had to take care of her. The act made it all come back, the knowledge, the horror, the desperation. And it came with a vengeance, slamming into him, straining the bonds with which Alja had tied him to his sanity to cut deeper, to make him bleed inside.

_She was gone. _That realization hit him again and again: When he thought of her, when he looked at her, whenever there was the shortest pause in his busy days filled with war.

Her body stood in the middle of his bedroom at his house, her face carrying the same blank stare it had worn ever since he had gotten her out of that damn treatment chair.

"Alja." he whispered her name, his voice trembling.

She just stood there quietly. Her eerie black gaze fixed somewhere in the air. And he couldn't stand it. Everything he'd held inside all day just broke free. He grabbed her shoulders and shook her. "Why Alja? Why the hell did you do that? I could have protected you! I'd have done everything to keep you safe! I would have destroyed the world for you!"

_I won't be the reason you turn into the monster you always feared you were. _The memory of her answered him before he had even fully spoken the words. He gentled his grip on her, felt his face distort in ways he had never known before. He imagined this was what it would feel like to have his heart torn out of his chest. And just when he thought the last bloody bits of tissue would sever it from his chest a violent surge of hope pulled the tattered organ back inside.

Finally she reacted, her head tipping slightly to the side as if she was surprised at his behavior, as if she'd make some provoking remark any moment. Her eyes seemed to focus him for a second. But it was only because he was the source of the shaking that had unbalanced her. A moment later her gaze slipped off into the empty space once again.

And hope rushed out of him as fast as it had come, leaving him to this excruciating pain again. All his life he had looked down on the feeling races. Even though he believed Silence to be flawed, because it was a tool of power abused by the Council, he had been brought up to believe the ones who felt were weaker. But he learned that error of his entire race now. How strong did one have to be to endure the pain he felt right now and not go insane with rage to numb it or crawl into a corner and simply wait to die?

He thought it would have been impossible for him, had not Alja's web held him so fiercely.

But it did. And it forced him to listen, to look at what Alja had wanted him to see all along.

Yes, her time in the Squad under Ming had taught her well after all. The web she'd spun around him was stunning in its beauty and although he could see all the strings he couldn't free himself from it. It held him tight even though he knew he was being played and it was more perfect than Ming's plans had ever been. It was unbreakable because its strings were neither physical nor mental. They were emotional. And no Psy could touch them. No Psy but Alja. And she was gone.

But it was even more: His earlier assessment had underestimated her completely. Her web was far more intricate and far more complicated than he'd initially realized. It wasn't simply her love she had used to tie him to this world, to reality and the task of saving their race. Because her love would also have been understanding, forgiving if he had given up right then and there.

_I know with which emotion you will react, with which emotion you always react. _The words from her letter merged with something else she had once said: _Guilt. That's what it is! That's what you're hiding under all this Silence. You never knew anything else._ She'd been right. It was guilt that kept him trying, even though everything inside him screamed to give up, to end this pain. Even the monster whimpered in its cage. But the thick walls inside his mind muffled the pained sounds. Oh, how he wished he could hide behind those walls as well. Hide from that new guilt, that was even worse than the guilt he'd felt before. With the swan girl he could at least try to pacify the stinging emotion with the fact that he truly hadn't had a choice. And with Her, with his sun mind, he could tell himself he hadn't yet failed. He could still find her, save her.

But with Alja there was no excuse. He had longed for her, wanted her, trusted her with most of his secrets and then bathed in her ability to accept, even love the darkest parts of him. But not once he had tried to do her justice and worked to live up to her trust and to her unwavering belief in him and the goodness she still saw in him. He'd been so stubborn about not having the capacity to be good, he'd driven her to believe it was her fault.

He had walked around like going irreversibly insane was absolutely inevitable, had always believed it was true for him. He hadn't even given a thought that there might be a chance to avoid it. That there might be something he could do about it. But she had. She had believed it, so hard she had sacrificed herself for his chance. Yes, she absurdly had believed he had a better chance without her, as if he had one at all. How could he throw that away? The truth was he couldn't. Now he had to try, had to honor her belief in him although she could no longer see it.

But even the guilt wasn't all. There was one more emotion he hardly dared to admit to himself. And that might be the most fatal one. Alja had used it because she had known it had kept him going through the emptiness before he knew her. It was hope.

As little as he had talked to her about the one mind the NetMind had told him so save, Alja had sensed that _She_ had kept him going before – the sun-mind. That was why Alja had asked about Her, when she'd first tried to make him hate her. That was why she had mentioned Her again in her farewell letter. She had used that hope too, like she had used anything she could find.

But beneath it all, beneath that old hope, the one his subconscious had nurtured for over seven years of his Silence, there bloomed yet another far more unreasonable but far more potent hope. And he had felt its effects just now, when he had thought for a split second he saw recognition in those empty black pools Alja's eyes had become: It was the hope of getting her back. Against all odds, against all facts, against what Alja herself had told him in her letter, against a reality that was screaming in his face, that she was gone, that hope held him prisoner.

Even as she stood there with an endless nothingness in her eyes.

Even as he had to push the backs of her knees against the bed again to make her lie down.

Even as he breathed in her scent of wildflowers after the rain, that slowly seemed to fade too.

Even as he held her unresponsive body as close as possible, the heat of it a mockery of the warmth of her personality that was missing like flesh and skin on a skeleton.

* * *

He took care of that body, washed and dressed her not caring that it might cost him precious time. Alja had left the remnants of herself in his hands, remnants of that beautiful radiant being that had illuminated his life for a short while. Her body deserved nothing less than to be treated with utmost care, even if she could never appreciate it again.

Right now he was waiting anyway – for a message from Aden. Soon enough everything would crash and burn around them. And his race had to show if it was strong enough to rise from the ashes.

He would try to his last breath to do right by Alja's legacy. That was why he waited for Aden and Vasic to find the children. That was why he'd even had asked the NetMind about Her, the sun mind, the woman he ought to save, again. But the neosentience had reacted only with a twisted, confused onslaught of information that was too much even for Kaleb to process. When he had asked to slow down, to clarify it had answered simply with a picture of darkness breaking up like walls being torn down, letting golden light flood in, Her light.

Which clarified exactly nothing to him. It was no answer to any of his questions, no indication how to find Her, who She was or how She could be saved. And suddenly there were bits of emotion jumbled up in the pictures the NetMind conveyed, urgency, guilt, as if he hadn't enough of that already. And he wasn't sure if he had never perceived those before, because he had been Silent or if the state of the NetMind simply indicated a new stage of deterioration of the Net. Probably the latter. But the result was that he was no step closer to fulfilling that task, while his time for the other, the one Alja had left him with, ran out. That left him with only one way to deal with the issue of Silence, the Council and saving his people from extinction: his way, and it was a violent one.

_One person you do not want to die. _It was the thing that had always kept him from taking that violent path. She might get lost, hurt in the ensuing chaos. The one person he cared enough for. Until Alja it had always been _Her_, the sun-mind, a distant hope, untouchable, insubstantial. Always one thought away from being a figment of imagination. And then Alja had come, with her warmth and light, not idealized, innocent and flawless – although in his eyes she'd been all those things. But most of all she had been real, touchable and now the long harbored dream of that sun-mind paled against the reality of what he'd felt for Alja. He would still try to find _Her_, to honor his promise to Alja, but the only relevance _She_ had, came from that promise.

So when the message he waited for came in, he decided not to wait any longer. The fall of Silence and the Council was more important. Both had done enough harm.


	75. Chapter 75

**Chapter 75**

Thalia Mercant, the head of the Mercant family, was surprised to find a message from Councilor Krychek in her e-mail account. Usually the contact with the Councilor was mediated by her niece Silver. Maybe something had happened to her. She wasn't worried though. Silver was one of the most valuable members of the family, but Thalia Mercant was Silent. Worry was not in her repertoire.

But far more than worry would become part of her repertoire soon.

* * *

Councilor Anthony Kyriakus had just started the day at his main office when he received the e-mail from an untraceable but well known account. He knew at once who sent it. The particular mode of contact had only ever been used by the individual he still only knew as the Ghost.

* * *

Aden received the message on his organizer just as he and Vasic were about to go to their rooms in the highly secure, secret facility, where they'd taken the recovered Arrow children. They wouldn't leave them alone right now but after working nonstop to find them for several days even Arrows needed some rest.

But that rest would have to wait now.

* * *

Judd was having breakfast with Brenna. He was glad they could have something so mundane together before he had to head out into the chaos of a war in the making again, especially since the atmosphere had been somewhat tensed during the last days. His changeling mate switched between worry for him and anger at him for endangering his life. He had grown to love that too, her temper something that showed him the different ways in which emotion worked, that contradictions were possible, that nothing was ever black and white and especially nothing ever was the dull gray of the Psy world.

_Judd._

He heard the telepathic hail as clear as if the speaker stood right next to him. And there was only one Psy in the Net who could find him, who was outside of it, and strong enough to telepath directly with such clarity. Only he usually preferred other modes of contact. Except when he'd teleported a woman on the brink of death to him.

_Yes. _He answered, careful to check if his shields and other security mechanisms were in place. That was something he wouldn't have done before. Now… he no longer knew if he could trust the Ghost.

_I'm teleporting a data crystal to you. It's important that you look at it at once. It's your head-start._ And after a little pause he added: _It's all I can do._ And strangely those last words sounded almost like an apology. But maybe, Judd thought, he just wanted them to, wanted to see compassion in the man, wanted his decision to save Kaleb's life be the right one.

Something glinted directly in front of him. He picked it out of the air before it could drop on his plate.

"What's that?" his mate immediately asked.

Brenna wouldn't like this. "It's from the Ghost." He expected another outburst about the 'homicidal maniac' as Brenna usually referred to the Ghost ever since he'd used Judd as leverage. And as close as he was to his mate, he hadn't yet been able to make her see why he understood the other man's actions. She respected his decisions, but she was so afraid for him, his logical explanation hadn't worked.

But now she just pulled a laptop from the bag beside her chair and slammed it on the table a little too hard. Of course his tech crazy mate would have one close by and of course she was SnowDancer through and through. So she'd understand that this might be more important than her anger and worry over him.

And it turned out that it was.

* * *

The message they all received was the same:

_You have worked with me in different ways for some time. In a world that would allow such a term I might call even you my friends. In the world as it is now I can afford no such thing. _

_But you have earned my loyalty and thus at least some warning about the things to come. So for once I am giving you a two hour head start on this information. _

_Prepare._

Attached was a recording of another broadcast that was prerecorded and scheduled exactly two hours from the time they all received the message.

* * *

The video showed Councilor Krychek standing in his Moscow office. Behind him stretched the window front that gave a view of the skyline of the city. But instead of the suited business man the media knew, Kaleb was now dressed in cargo-pants, a simple black shirt without a tie and a black leather coat hanging open on his shoulders. To those who had ever seen them, he would have looked a lot like an Arrow. To him it was a symbolic act of taking over Alja's task. And to most of the population, who saw the broadcast, he looked more like a dark general leading his army into the final battle. And maybe that was what he was doing.

There was nothing left of the polished and utterly professional façade the Psy and especially the Council had usually exuded. The set up appeared designed to convey an ambience of doom. But it wasn't. It simply no longer hid the emotion that flooded through Kaleb and that resonated in every Psy, deep under the layers of their conditioning: The threat of nothingness and a desperation that left almost no room for hope – almost. And that was the reason this transmission would finally succeed in shaking up a race that had been frozen in unfelt fear for a hundred years. That and the information he was about to reveal.

_"__Today I am here to make an official statement about the Council situation and the current issues in the Net. This statement is long overdue, since the situation has considerably destabilized over the last months and weeks. And although it is not supported by the whole Council, this is going to be as official as it gets, since the Council no longer exists. What you witnessed for months now are no longer political agendas but the remnants of a crumbling power structure that succumbs to the rot its members created for over a century. A rot that consists of lies and threats and murder and now infiltrates the whole Net on a level that might cause its collapse if we do not act. And by 'we' I mean the Psy as a race. _

_Many of you might be inclined not to believe a word I say, since over the course of the last few weeks our own media channels or propaganda machine, as some might call it, have portrayed me as a dangerous mad-man. And maybe I am. But if you believe that, then you should ask: What does it say about the Council to have let someone like me into their ranks? Are they weak? Or stupid? Or did they just not care? I don't ask you to believe me or trust in my words any more than any other Councilor's. But I will give you something none of them has given you for over a century. Unfiltered facts. As I speak various sources of information the Council has withheld from the public are uploaded into public chatrooms and platforms in the PsyNet as well as the Internet. The data I provide will enable you to make up your mind without any of us telling you what to think, what to believe. It will enable you to decide whether you want to stay silent in more than one way or whether you want to start to speak, to feel, to fight – to survive. _

_The files that are uploaded have been collected by me and many other individuals, whose identity is not mine to share. Those individuals as well will have to decide, whether they follow my open approach on the situation or stay hidden. Some of the evidence might not be complete or convicting. But as a sum you will get a picture of the development of our society under the Council over the last decades. You will be able to see how the system has been fracturing for years now. And as you will be able to conclude from the data, we may be running out of time to wait things out: You will find proof of the ineffectiveness of Silence in controlling violence in our race, in the numerous and rising rates of documented incidences of violent outbursts. Some of those cases were intentionally attributed wrongly to the consumption of Jax, which is another growing problem in our society, and one the Council usually likes to play down, if it is not using it as a scapegoat for the far graver issue of rising rates of psychotic and psychopathic forms insanity. The most prominent case you will find documented is that of the late Councilor Santano Enrique who murdered 26 women under the cover of the Council's power structure and who was stopped not by our own enforcement system but by a group of changelings, because contrary to our race they cared. _

_But recently the problem escalates at an alarming rate: It no longer just consists of isolated cases of psychopathy, but of clustered breakdowns of whole groups of Psy. One incident that was held under lock and key affected at least 21 members of a mining op in Sunshine, Alaska, who most violently slaughtered the entire workforce of 120 Psy on site. _

_Various other incidents all over the globe show that the state of the Net itself is deteriorating, starting from sparsely occupied areas and closing in on the more populated sections of the Net. _

_You will also find untampered evidence Councils failed attempts to reestablish stability with doubtful and unethical methods that were designed to uphold the power structure rather than the vitality of the Net. In some cases those methods were entirely fruitless in others they even led to further deterioration. Among those are the Omega project and Protocol I, which have already been debunked by forces of the rebellion and put to rest before they could do any real harm to the Net as a whole. But there are more subtle variants of misguided damage control by the Council that are still in action. The rehabilitation regimens have been tightened gradually for years now to secure the continuity of Silence, with no other effect than an increase in instability of the sectors where they were most heavily implemented._

_And apart from all those facts, I know many of you have seen them: the dead areas, the tendrils of rot infiltrating the Net section by section. Net is dying. Most of you already know. But none of you dares to inquire further. How should you with this looming over your heads?"_

At those words the camera moved and zoomed out enough to reveal the woman no one had known a few weeks ago but everyone knew now. It was the one who was responsible for the mess in the Net. That was what they'd been told. The Council's easy explanation for the problem delivered with the solution, just as always. But as Kaleb spoke the Psy started to think. They couldn't avoid it, when he forced them to see, what everyone had been taught to look away from all their lives.

_"__Our facilities are full of people who have been erased from their bodies for the simple crime of daring to feel. And the truth is it doesn't work. Rehabilitation has no other purpose than keeping all of us, all of you in check, keeping you from acting, talking, even thinking by yourself. But it will not stop our minds from crumbling under insanity. This is why, from this day on, I will stop any form of invasive rehabilitation in the Centers located in my sector. The Centers will still be open for anyone who seeks assistance with mental stability problems. We will try to find other ways, even though they took our one chance at a peaceful healing, when they took _her_ from us." _Those last words sounded unexpectedly soft and warm from a man who was known only for the most cutting and cold statements. As he spoke them he stepped closer to the woman caressing her expressionless face with the gentlest brush of his knuckles over her cheek.

_"__Yes, this woman was not the threat she was manipulated into admitting to be before they destroyed her. She could have been our cure." _Kaleb's voice almost broke when he said it and he made another pause, while his hand fisted on the back of Alja's chair. The only sign of how hard it was for him to hold on to control. When he continued to speak his voice was steady once more.

_"__Now you might believe me truly as insane as my fellow Councilors tried to make you believe. That is why I have added one last collection of files, to the data I made publicly available: Those files I retrieved directly from the Council vaults; proof that there once was, and maybe still is a designation that was equipped to read and influence emotion itself, just as other designations influence thought or matter, read the currents of time or the history of objects. _

_The so called empathy is a designation the Council wiped from public memory because it didn't fit with the Silence Protocol. It is the only designation that might provide a solution for the accelerating degeneration of the Net. empaths are our last hope. And the strongest of them, has been taken from us by the remnants of a Council that values its own power above the survival of our race. _

_Am I not one of them you might ask?" _The camera now focused fully on Kaleb's face, letting it fill the millions of screens that had by now turned on and showed his message._ "No, I never considered myself one of them. I am simply a Ghost rising from the wreckage of their crimes to haunt them, to take them apart from within. But from today on I will no longer be a Ghost. I will be the knife that cuts out this cancer that is Silence._

_They took our cure. Now all we have left is the knife. We have to cut this tumorous growth out of ourselves and hope we'll survive as a race. We need to feel. We need to be angry. We need to be violent. All of us need to become the knife."_

And just like that the transmission ended – without any further announcement of what was about to happen next. It would have been unnecessary. With his last revelation Kaleb had made himself more believable than any of his data could have done. Finally the Ghost had risen. Now there was only one result this could lead to: War.


	76. Chapter 76

**Change**

_Canada_

Peter Tenman rose up early for his monthly haircut. As always he had planned exactly one hour for it before he had to be at work. But today as he checked the fit of his clothing in the mirror he decided, that maybe he would look better if his hair were longer. So he decided to stay at home a little longer and just surf for some interesting news.

There was nothing special about it – except that Peter didn't surf the internet but the PsyNet.

* * *

**Chapter 76**

Nikita Duncan had one hour left to make her business empire war-proof, after she'd finished watching the video her daughter had sent her. Had it been any other person, even a Psy, that warning would have come much too late. But Nikita had prepared for war for a long time. And she wasn't known as a business shark for nothing. She was so attuned to every aspect of the economic world it was practically part of her personality. So she handled the few trades at the stock market that were necessary to limit the damage in that area and called her security chief to set in motion the protocols they had prepared for months. She knew she wouldn't come out of this unscathed. It didn't matter as long as she came out better than anyone else.

She was also not surprised to receive only a short telepathic warning before Anthony appeared right in her San Francisco office, brought in by a teleporter. He would have been alerted by his own daughter.

"The video is going to air in less than an hour. The data he mentions is already online," she began without greeting. "The populace will need some time to process all the information Kaleb set free but this has great potential to escalate."

"Potential? Do you really think this can be stopped? Kaleb just did the biggest whistle blowing in – well, probably in history."

"We have brought other difficult situations back under control: The people didn't riot when Ashaya Aleine revealed the Council's plan to basically turn them into a hive-mind and effectively sterilizing them. And they barely reacted when NewsNet practically fileted Kaleb and his past a week ago." She had a point. The populace had taken it all suspiciously quiet. In all of the other races a scandal like this would have resulted in heated discussions across the media maybe even demonstrations on the streets. Most likely the demand of political consequences such as resignations from their Council seats would have become loud. Not so for the Psy. In Ashaya's case, the Council had corrected their politics a little and it had all blown over quiet smoothly. And during the last week… If anything at all, stocks of companies in which Kaleb was involved would have dropped. But even that effect had been limited.

"The situation is far different than it was two years ago. Back then the Council still worked as a unit, at least outwardly. We could shut off any reaction again and again. Now the Council is fractured to the point of nonexistence and has lost that advantage. You know that. Are you still deluding yourself into believing we can go back to the state we had before?"

The words were unusually hard coming from one of the most diplomatic political figures in the Psy world. For the first time Nikita wondered whether she had misjudged the man she had started to build an Alliance with, after both their daughters had defected.

"I'm not. I'm just weighing all the options," she responded a little stubborn, realizing too late that even she was unused to that kind of pressure.

"The Net is destabilizing and the rebellion has secretly gained impact. And while they might have overlooked information about Kaleb's personal background, this is different: He gave the rebellion a face. And with that he gave food to the well-hidden hopes of millions. And even if the rest of the Council still acts as one…The people might have looked the other way until now. But Kaleb doesn't let them look away anymore. He forces them to look at the one thing that kept them in line as long as it was a possibility in the back of their minds."

"Rehabilitation." She should have known that was the key. Why hadn't she seen it? Ah yes, she had banned every thought of it ever since she realized that her own daughter was different, was one of those who might be listed for rehabilitation herself. What she had done to avoid that… in the end she had even let her go. It had been the logical choice.

"It's the one thing every single one of us tries to avoid," Anthony continued. "But he flaunts that woman in our faces. And she's the perfect example: She was nobody a few weeks ago. She was just visible enough, so they knew her. She might have been anybody. And that's the message he's sending. It might hit anybody at any time."

"You almost sound as if you approve of his agenda." She might have had a momentary lapse of judgement on the public situation, but Nikita's mind had gone back to working as sharp as ever within seconds.

"Maybe I'm just admiring his tactics." It had never been easy to imbalance Anthony. But today he seemed especially hard to get to. "But what if I did approve?"

"You think he might be right." She hesitated for a moment. "No there's more. You believe he's right." She barely had begun considering whether she might believe it too. For the last few decades she had been so entangled in Council lies, she had actually developed the habit of looking away from undesirable facts as long as there was any possibility of explaining them away publicly. But that strategy, that way of life, would no longer work now. Anthony's next statement made that undeniably clear.

"This won't blow over. He said to prepare. It's time to choose a side Nikita."

So that was why he was here. Both of them were associated in the public eye, since they lived quite closely in the same sector and governed it practically together. They needed to know where they stood with each other now.

"I was the first Councilor to rescind support for the Protocol. Isn't that enough?" Nikita knew she couldn't avoid being dragged into the war. But war was bad for business so she would have liked to be involved as indirectly as possible.

"In the current situation we might have to do better than that. We are – or were Council after all."

"Both our daughters broke Silence. For the first time that might come in useful," she speculated.

To anyone else that might have sounded like a cold and calculating assumption, but Anthony heard the hidden undertone. Saw the subtle signs he had been observing for a while now. Nikita pretended to be talking about her own position, but really her statement held relief, that the backlash of the whistleblowing would not fall back on her daughter Sascha. He didn't comment on it however. Nikita wasn't ready to admit anything. That also meant she wasn't ready to learn about his involvement with the rebellion. He had to get her to agree to some of his goals nonetheless. "We already subtly loosened the regimens at the Centers. We could do that officially as well."

"I agree. But that is only the start. Isn't it?"

"As I said: It is time to choose a side."


	77. Chapter 77

**Chapter 77**

Something fluttered in the periphery of his vision. A bird flying by the window front of his Moscow office. Before he could even think about it, Kaleb rose and watched the creatures flight over the city. The bird in flight reminded him of Alja. Like everything else, these days. He almost expected it to plummet at some point. But it didn't. Maybe Alja would have reacted to it. He risked a glance at her, where she was sitting in the comfortable armchair he had teleported in for her. But she looked straight at the wall before her. No sign she had even noticed the movement outside the window. Hope had flared once again last night just to be crushed, when she had finally moved on her own. He had awoken when he'd felt her stir and leave his side in the bed and headed straight out of the room. He had followed her to the unfurnished living room, where she had sat down on the carpet, right in the middle of a perfect circle of singed fibers as if she remembered the moments of far more than just physical intimacy they'd shared in that spot. But when he'd tried to speak to her, looked into those eerie eyes the reaction was the same as it had been since the moment he'd pulled her from the treatment room at the Center: none at all. How much pain could a heart bear before it simply stopped on its own accord? More than he had ever imagined, Kaleb found out as he saw her right there in that place that meant so much to him, with that utter emptiness in her gaze. Still he had to tear his mind away from the memory, because there also had been that insidious hope that she might remember, that she might come back.

When he looked back out of the window the bird was gone, lost somewhere over the roofs of Moscow.

For his mind it didn't matter. It had already found the next memory of Alja in the room: He had pressed her against that window, threatened her just before she confessed about her empathy for the first time. He had put a knife to her throat and still she had begun to love him. That thought alone sent a spike of excruciating pain through his chest. Yes, she had fallen in love with him in spite of everything he was, in spite of everything he'd done. He had always believed she didn't see it. Had even accused her of looking away of ignoring that part of him. But he'd been wrong. She'd accepted him, all of him, right from the start. Alja didn't look away.

He remembered their first walk in the grove behind the truckstop. Where she had marveled at the dewdrops in a spider web. Just for a few moments her eyes had lingered on the tiny thing, before she had shared one of her unique views on emotion. Or later, when he'd shown her his cabin in the Altai: The way she touched the wisps of Russian sage as if she'd never touched anything before, the way she, traced the veining of a leave with her fingers, it had made him jealous of the damn plant.

It was just who she was. She always payed attention to every detail as if every little thing mattered. And she couldn't tune out the suffering of anyone. And as painful her decision to sacrifice herself was to him, for Alja it had been logical. Because she had looked all too closely. And she had been right. _I would've destroyed the world for you._ For her he wouldn't have cared if he turned into the monster that had been sleeping inside him for so long. He would've betrayed his own oath never to become like his mentor. And Alja had done the one thing she had left to try and keep him from going down that path.

And that pain, that guilt, they almost killed him.

CRACK.

A loud noise broke his thoughts. For a moment it reminded him of the cruel sound of breaking bones that haunted him in his nightmares. Then he saw what it had been. The bulletproof glass of the window front bore a gigantic crack all the way across.

He'd lost control. Again.

By now it was nothing new to him. But it showed him that he needed a failsafe. He mustn't risk pulling the whole world with him, when he finally dropped into that abyss. For her –

"Sir." Silver's voice startled him. He had neither sensed her coming on the physical nor on the mental plane. He turned towards her. Saw her eyes flick to the unmissable fissure in the window pane. She didn't comment on it however. "I have the stock market report. I thought you might want to discuss it in person."

"Send it to me, but give me a summary."

She obeyed the order at once. And Kaleb found himself wondering why. She must've noticed what a thin line he was walking. Had he scared her into submission just like anyone else? Anyone but Alja… Did she fear the monster? But no… those thoughts were useless. He had to stop this. And he did just in time so he didn't miss the most important parts of her report.

"Your corporations lost twenty percent on average in the course of the last week. That's not much more than most others lost." A few months ago that would have been devastating. But now the war had hit the world for real and it didn't stop at the economy. "The outcome could be much worse considering what happened. My guess is that so far no one really knows how to deal with the situation. But the market is fluctuating heavily. It is unpredictable how it will develop even in the next few days."

"It's fine as long as the damage stays limited to the same degree the market is hit. The resources for what is to come are located elsewhere and unaffected by the business world. Keep an eye on it, but only alert me if there are major changes."

She nodded and turned to leave. But for once she suddenly stopped. "Sir?"

He raised his head, alert.

"There's something else." She waited for him to raise his brows in expectation. "What you did for my sister. And when you gave my family that 'head-start'…"

That wasn't what he'd expected. "It was well earned. Your family has been very helpful, more than once."

"Just know: Whatever happens, –" a pointed look at the cracked window this time "– the Mercant family will stand with you."

No it wasn't what he'd expected at all. Probably Alja would have. She'd understood these things, loyalty and maybe something else. "Thank you," he replied before he lost himself to his memories once more.


	78. Chapter 78

**Change**

_India_

Simrat Kaur was one hundred and twenty five years old. Still she took a walk every day to keep physically fit. She walked for one hour every evening after she had finished her daily check up on her famlies' finances. Although they were mostly handled by her family group now and she had given over the position of the head of the family to her son, she still had a sharp mind and a good eye for economic developments. As she slowly paced through the streets the people greeted her with respect, not due to her age but her position as the most successful businesswoman in the small town. She had done well in life. As a young woman she had adapted to the Silence Protocol better than most her age and subsequently built a small enterprise for kitchen accessories that gave many people in the area a job. Today like every day she paused her walk for a short rest at the top of the small hill that was the only challenge on her route.

Nothing was any different from every day during the past couple of years, except for the timing. For a few weeks she had gradually started her walk a little later so she would always be at the top of the hill right when the sun set behind the horizon. At that hour of the day the sky just turned the most beautiful color. So beautiful, it sometimes brought a tear to her eyes.

* * *

**Chapter 78**

Kaleb was worn raw. He still held on to his iron control but it was faltering more with each day that passed. Within a few short weeks he had fully transformed into a ruthless rebel leader. No more perfectly cut suits, no more false charm. He had no reason left to disguise who he was.

His army consisted of those Psy who finally had risen, those who finally dared to question the system, to demand change, the last ones who could scrape up a Psy's version of hope in their desperate struggle against their doom. But even that faint hope was leaving him with each day he had to look into those empty, black eyes.

The largest part of the day Alja scuffled around the halls or just sat in some corner barely moving until he made her get up or sit down again. Sometimes she would just stop somewhere and stand there, staring at something, as if there was nothing else in the world. And then she would start some every day task like opening a door just to stand there with her hand on the handle, as if she didn't know what to do. Other times she would lie down on the bed in the middle of the day but not sleep. Sometimes she even went to the gym, but just stood there staring at the floor rocking back and forth on her heels until someone ushered her out. Every time he hoped for a sign that there was some part of her left that remembered what she had done there, who she had been. But she never changed.

And then, this morning, it had happened. She had suddenly gotten up from the chair in his office by herself and walked over to the window. She had just stood there and looked out at the sky. And then she had started crying.

From one second to the next his heart had started racing, hope surging through him with a violence he had barely known from any emotion he had felt before. He had rushed over to her, called her name, kissed her face and held her in his arms for minutes before he couldn't ignore the truth any longer: she was still as unresponsive as she'd been ever since the rehabilitation.

He couldn't clearly remember how he had managed to pull himself together afterwards. But since that incident he tried not to look at her too often. When she rose again in the afternoon he let her leave the office. If she got too far away, someone would carefully guide her back. He hadn't even had to tell them. Everyone knew she was to be treated with utmost care but not restrained within the building. He wanted her to be as free as possible. Even if she couldn't relish it now.

Not having her too close by made it a little easier to concentrate on the border situation he had to deal with. He didn't want to, but that didn't matter. He no longer wanted anything. In a way he was even less involved than he had been when he had been Silent. But this had to be done. For her. That was his sole motivation.

What Delenko reported to him now was nothing he hadn't expected: An increasing number of Psy had started to cross the unofficial borders into his territory, among them not only those who had decided to side with the rebellion, but also a lot of Psy who had been hiding defects in their conditioning, some for years. Now they were pulled towards his sector by the promise of freedom and pushed be the tightened Center-regulations of the other Councilors. The sectors of the other tolerant Councilors were overseas, so his was the best or even the only viable option for every Psy in Eurasia and even Africa, who wanted to escape the fate of the woman they had all seen on screen a few weeks ago. Finally they had reacted, had been shaken out of their lifelong stupor.

"And the first thing they do is run," he stated more to himself than to the man on front of him.

"Sir?" Delenko asked when Kaleb didn't follow up his statement.

"Our whole race has cowered before the Council for so long. And now they're doing it again by running away from the threat of rehabilitation," he clarified. He knew he should be thinking about this rationally. But it was hard not to be led by the contempt he felt for those Psy who were seeking protection from the Centers in his territory. The truth was he didn't blame them for being scared. But a part of him wanted to blame them for reacting too late for Alja. But that reproach rebounded right back on him. He could have made them react sooner, could have taken the rebellion into the open, before Alja was so desperate, she saw no other way than to sacrifice herself. In the end it all came back to him. It was his fault. More guilt for him to suffer.

"We could close the borders." His chief of security suggested, pulling him from his thoughts once more. "We have the manpower to do that as long as there is no invasive action from the other former Councilors."

"No, they can come. But they'll have to agree to fight, if it becomes necessary. I want everyone with offensive abilities above 6.0 on the Gradient and everyone who's physically able in military training, from age fourteen upwards. Use the personnel you'd have put on the borders to arrange that."

"That's a very young age, Sir."

"It's old enough to kill." The children Ming had sent for Alja had been even younger than that. His hand closed around the silver star pendant, he still carried in his pocket. It was as if the thing collected all the guilt he amassed to remind him of it. Now Alja was the third woman tied to that symbol of lost hope.

"Understood." The other man turned on his heel without further comment, but was called back before he reached the door.

"Delenko… Don't make it obligatory for the younger ones. They can train if they want to but if we have to deploy them I want no one active before the age of 18 and no one in the offense under 21." Alja wouldn't have wanted it.

As if the thought of Alja had triggered a connection to her, he felt something from her, he hadn't ever noticed before. But she wasn't there. Where had she wandered off to? He had needed to focus intensely to find her mind in space, because there was so little left of her to make out. The moment he did, he teleported to her and found himself in the bathroom of her apartment. She was standing in the shower, fully dressed, the water cascading over her. When he appeared beside her she turned and looked at him with the same empty eyes as always.

"What are you doing?" he asked, although he knew she wouldn't answer. He reached for the shower controls only to jump back at the pain that hit him with the water. It was almost boiling. Not bothering to try and turn it off again he grabbed Alja around the waist and pulled her out of the cubicle. She didn't react. Not when he ruggedly pulled her from the bathroom in his shock, not when he changed her clothes and checked her body for burns from the hot water. Her skin had turned an angry shade of red. But she didn't seem to register any pain.

* * *

„There is some damage to her skin. First degree burns on her forehead, cheeks and shoulders. I applied a cooling spray. They should be healed within a few days," Aden concluded after doing a medical check-up on Alja.

"But what's wrong with her? Why would she do this?" Kaleb asked. He had to know what it was, that made Alja behave so strangely.

"Those symptoms and the behavior you describe are not uncommon. They happen sometimes, when the rehabilitation was very thorough." He looked up as if uncertain whether to go on but decided there was no way around it, when he saw the cardinal's intense, questioning look. "When the personality is removed too rigorously, it can impair some of the more basic functions."

"Like knowing when to close your eyes at the light and when you should stop boiling yourself in hot water?"

Aden clearly was unused to the open aggression in Kaleb's tone. But he didn't flinch. "Basically, yes," he answered almost apologetically. "Most of the major brain processes are short-circuited by the rehabilitation. Another theory is that the brain seeks intense stimuli to try to restart them."

"And has that ever worked in anyone?" Kaleb asked although he already knew the answer.

"Not that I know of." He paused again. "Look Kaleb. That she doesn't react to the burn damage isn't a good sign. It could be, her nerves have been damaged by the Jax during the procedure. The alternative would be that her brain has lost the ability to react to input from the skin nerves."

"So what else is she going to do?"

"It's hard to predict but this kind of effect usually doesn't fade…" Aden hesitated again.

"Tell me the truth. It won't make me any more unstable than I already am," Kaleb demanded impatiently.

"Her behavior may change from catatonic to more erratic at first. In the long run all her brain functions might shut down one by one, alongside her physical ones. If that happens she might start to have seizures and in the long run –"

"She's going to die," Kaleb finished his sentence.

"Yes." The medic's voice was calm, when he confirmed it, but the look he gave Kaleb said he was waiting for the storm to break loose.

"Maybe that is the best then. She is already gone anyway," Kaleb stated mechanically. But he knew it wasn't true. After all he still cherished that body that had once held the woman who had meant everything to him.

"I saw that she still carries some of her weapons. In her current state that is dangerous. Why would you give them to her at all?" Aden asked.

Every day Kaleb strapped one of her willow-glass blades to her shin and another to her forearm, just as she'd always worn them. "An Arrow is never without a weapon," he cited her now. "I cannot take that from her. She has given enough. They took enough from her. She wouldn't feel safe. – I know it's not rational. But with her I don't have to be. It doesn't matter." Then he took one of her hands that seemed still alive but some degrees colder than usually. "But you're right, she should no longer have to wear that uniform… Something softer would be better on her skin as well. Don't you think?"

Aden didn't respond. He had the feeling that the other man was no longer in the room with him. The Arrows would monitor him. But in the end, what were they to do? Their very purpose of existence was inevitably falling apart. Who should they protect now? Who should they kill? Vasic was the best example for an Arrow who had lost his purpose and was deteriorating. Aden would talk to him again…

"You've known her almost all her life. Why did she do it?" The question came so suddenly, Aden almost thought he had misheard. But Kaleb's eyes were focused on him once again, as if he'd just remembered that question and come back to ask it, from wherever it was he went before.

"You're right. I knew her longest in the Squad. But I didn't know her like you did. She never revealed who or what she really was to any of us."

"Still you grew up with her. I just want to know your perspective."

Aden realized Kaleb was looking for answers he'd never find. His answer wouldn't matter. But he decided to give him the truth. "She grew up as an Arrow. If she thought herself less needed than another team member, it was logical to give herself up. – I think she had high hopes in you."

Without knowing what Alja had told him, what she'd written in that senseless letter, Aden had hit the nail on the head. And it didn't bring any relief to Kaleb. Again the strings of Alja's web pulled tighter.

But how much longer would they hold?


	79. Chapter 79

**Chapter 79**

"The fuck you'll go meet him!" Brenna screamed at her mate. Her eyes had gone wolf and her claws were out. Judd had hoped this discussion would go a little more rational but well – he should know his mate better by now. They had been fighting over this again and again through the day, ever since Judd had gotten the message that said the Ghost wanted to meet him.

"Brenna, I have to go. He needs my help. Many Psy helped us during the Pure Psy attack. I…"

"And Kaleb Krychek was not one of them. This is not about Psy and changelings it's about him and us." The distinction was important. Brenna knew she couldn't make it about Psy and changelings. But she was desperate to keep her mate out of the reach of a man, everyone knew to be on the brink of snapping.

"This is important. It might concern all Psy," he tried again.

"Then find another way. I won't ever let you near that bastard again. He fucking sold you out after you saved his life." Brenna tried hard to calm down enough to have a discussion instead of just screaming how insane that idea of her mate was.

"He didn't harm me and he probably wouldn't have. It would have gained him nothing. He just used the fact you didn't know that."

"Oh yeah and that's ok? What fucking Psy logic is this?" She was still beside herself with rage and fear for Judd.

"It has nothing to do with logic. He's no longer Silent. And Alja was something to him that…" He considered for a moment how to explain it so Brenna would truly understand. Then he decided to use the same approach he had on Hawke. "To put it with changeling terminology: He was afraid for his mate."

It didn't have the effect of making her understand. Instead it just enraged her more. "Bullshit! Psy don't mate!" she barked at him.

Judd just looked at her with raised eyebrows, something inside him quickly heating up at her careless words.

"Oh come on Judd, you know what I mean…"

"No I don't," he replied as calm as possible, but his voice came out louder that intended. "Do you deny that a Psy can feel to that extent without changeling assistance? Is my emotion worth less than yours?" A part of him knew those words would only lead to further escalation. Another part just didn't care that it would, because he was… – He was angry and hurt by her words, he realized surprised. Mating her was the best thing that had happened in his life. That she would even hint at his emotions not being the same as a changeling's seriously rubbed him the wrong way.

That moment it knocked on the door.

"Not now!" Judd growled.

But Brenna shouted: "Come in!"

The door opened and Hawke entered the room watchful, catching the tension.

"You called Hawke into this?" Judd was too surprised to even react angry.

"Yes, I called Hawke into it. Since you refuse to listen to your goddamn mate I'm having your alpha pull rank."

"You sure fight mean today," Judd more growled than muttered under his breath.

Hawke was surprised to see the usually calm Psy so upset. What had Brenna thought, when she told him earlier, she desperately needed to talk to him? He had enough on his plate already and no interest in getting involved in his pack's personal matters. "This better not be a domestic problem." He snarled annoyed.

"He wants to meet with that homicidal maniac again," Brenna pouted.

"The Ghost. Have you thought about this?" Hawke began. "The man's batshit crazy. And from the looks of it, he's not regaining any of his sanity right now. Today he let Alja attend to one of his speeches – in a wedding dress."

Brenna had expected him to voice his opinion far less hesitant. "So, just tell him not to go." She didn't even mind, she sounded like a stubborn child.

Hawke took a deep breath. "I can't Brenna. If Judd thinks it's what's best for the sake of the Psy and us, he has to go. You grew up in the pack. You know soldiers have to go into volatile situations."

"What?! … Yeah, I'll remind you of that next time your mate is the one to head out and meet a cardinal crazy person," Brenna spat defiantly.

Hawke was surprised at the bite in her voice and her eyes that refused to go back to human even in the presence of her alpha. She hadn't been acting this way since her recovery from her abduction by the Psy serial killer Santano Enrique. But he did understand what went through her mind, so he addressed Judd next. "But Judd, you should consider your mate's worry too." Hawke hadn't said it, because he thought Judd needed the advice, but to calm Brenna. He had even expected Judd to understand that. But what he got in response was a positively feral look. He clearly had stirred up a hornets nest.

"Now you're questioning my ability to mate or truly care for my mate as well?" Behind Judd various pieces of furniture had started to float above the ground.

Something must have hit a nerve with the former Arrow who was usually the role model for self-control. Hawke didn't like this knew vibe of tension in the den, especially not from his most levelheaded people. All of this was just another sign how tense the whole situation had become and how much it already affected his pack. It was all a fucking mess. But he'd have to trust that his people would be able to endure that tension and still function as a pack. So, as much as he wanted to fix it for them…"I don't think this matter is currently something I have to deal with. And I don't want it to become such a thing, because I really don't want to have to act as your alpha in this. I fully believe _both_ of you are capable to settle this alone, as mates."

With one last glance at the floating furniture he left their quarters, because he really did trust Judd. No matter how angry he was, he'd never allow his abilities to slip and hurt his mate.

Brenna knew that too, so the moment Hawke was out of the door, she shoved Judd in the chest with changeling strength.

"Get your fucking TK under control! Now! You don't get to get this angry over something stupid I said. I know you feel nothing less than any of us. I know how you feel about me. And yes, I also know how you feel about that psychopath: You consider him a friend and you think he's what you could've become. And I know you're probably the only one who has any influence left on him and that it all makes perfect sense – logically." At the last word her voice broke and tears welled up in her eyes. She angrily tried to blink them away. "But that doesn't mean I'll have to agree with you meeting him, or that I have to fight fair, or that I have no right to be fucking angry with you!"

Judd paused. He hadn't wanted to make her cry. Of course not. He hated it, hated himself for it. He stepped closer to her, forcing himself to ease the furniture down. Then he lifted a hand to stroke her cheek. She didn't pull back but didn't lean into the touch either. "But you'll still be here when I come back." It was half question, half statement and he had never heard himself sound so tender and so upset at the same time. Hopefully she didn't think this was an easy decision for him, because it was one of the hardest things he'd ever done.

"You'll have to see..." she stated in a failing attempt to sound cool. Then she gripped his shirt and pulled him in for a short rough kiss, scratching his chest through the fabric in the process, because her claws were still out. "And since you know so much about mating, I'm sure you know, you better not get hurt." With that she stormed out of the room faster that he could react.


	80. Chapter 80

**Change**

_Italy_

As always Maria Rachelli was up before her husband. Their shared parenting contract scheduled her to take care of the children in the morning, while he had the evenings. He had not left his room, when she prepared the nutrition for Andrea, the older boy, who showed up exactly on time as always. He had been in conditioning for four years and the Protocol developed good in him, just as expected. Although two years younger, his little brother was just as promising. But today the smaller boy suddenly stood in the kitchen door, minutes before his breakfast time, staring wide eyed at his mother.

"Rafael. You're early. What is it?" It was a sharp question. But maybe her tone was just not as icy as usual.

Still the more unexpected was his reaction: Rafael ran into the room calling out loudly: "Mommy it is such a beautiful day isn't it?" Trudging around the counter to hug her, he added joyously "And the sunshine looks so pretty in your hair."

At first the mother was startled, but then she found herself hugging her son back and taking him up on her arms.

"Is that ok mom?" Andrea asked, visibly unsettled by the strange behavior of his family members.

"Yes, I think it is…" she answered hesitantly. "Yes it is ok. Today really is a beautiful day."

Andrea got up and made it halfway around the counter before he hesitated. He stared at his reflection in the kitchen window touching his head with a concentrated frown. "Mom is there sunshine in my hair, too?"

She stepped closer and pretended to look really hard. Then she ran her hand over his head, tousling his hair. "Yes, of course there is. And it's just as beautiful."

Just at that moment Rafael Bernardo senior exited his room, fully dressed for work. Passing through the hallway he saw the scene in the kitchen and stopped at the door. His wife froze, one hand still in her son's hair, the other holding her four year old, who was smiling widely.

Very slowly he set down his briefcase and took a few careful steps towards his family.

"Rafael, I…" Maria began.

_Not in front of the children. _He interrupted her telepathically. _Have you thought about what you're doing? _

She started rocking the boy on her arm and kept stroking the other's hair, while she continued the telepathic conversation with her husband. _There is so much change… I think what they said about Silence… They might be right…_But before she could even find her composure in the face of the catastrophe this might turn into, Rafael spoke out loudly again.

"Boys, go and pack things for a week. Andrea, help your brother!"

"But I have to go to school," Andrea protested not leaving his mother's side.

_What are you doing? I'm not letting you take my children. _There was a determination in her voice no fully Silent Psy would have dared to show.

"Your mother will call you in sick for today," the father answered. When the boy still didn't move he added stiffly: "Since it is such a beautiful day, we're going to make a trip." To his wife he silently added: _I'm not taking them. I'm taking all of you. If you break Silence, that's your decision. But I'm not having you do it in Councilor LeBon's sector. I won't see my family be taken to the Center. _

"Do as your father says," Maria finally agreed. She set down her youngest and the children hesitantly left for their rooms. _You want us to leave for good? Together?_

Rafael took another small step towards his wife. _There is no other option as long as the situation is as unstable as now. And it would be safest to stay together as a family at least as long as it takes for this change to take root or blow over. _His face still showed no emotion but his expression was intense in a way Maria had never seen.

"I'll have to cancel a few appointments for today and call the school. Then I'll pack too," she answered aloud, starting for the hallway. When she passed her husband she felt a strong hand grip her slender one and hold it tightly just for a second.

* * *

**Chapter 80**

"You came."

The voice in the shadows sounded strained. And when he stepped out, Judd barely recognized the Ghost. The image Kaleb had created for the media was only part of it. On the screen he hadn't looked as tired, as gaunt. He had visibly lost weight within a few weeks. His hair was no longer styled and his jaw bore at least two days of stubble. Judd wouldn't be fooled by that ragged exterior. The man was still dangerous. "Only to hear what you have to say."

"I want to apologize for my actions. Using you as leverage was beneath me. – No –" He paused, seemed confused for a moment. "No, I wanted to say it was wrong…" Again he paused seeming lost in thought.

An apology was the last thing Judd had expected from the rebel, who seemed to tumble further and further into insanity. He waited for him to continue.

"But what I want to ask of you, may compensate for that." Suddenly the confusion and distraction vanished behind a strange form of composure. As if he had found a new determination. "My sanity is no longer something I can count on. Sooner rather than later someone needs to put me down. I cannot be allowed to live in this state of mind."

"And you want me to do it?" Another thing Judd hadn't expected, but he couldn't say he was surprised either. It was logical, under the given circumstances.

"That would be my choice, if I was certain you were able to do it. But if I lose control, that might not be possible. I am after all much stronger than you. But I want you to make the decision. You did it for me once. And I trust you with it again."

Judd didn't understand at once what the other man was referring to. How could he make the decision, if he wasn't able to do the deed himself? After the display of dishevelment he almost couldn't believe Kaleb was still able to plan rationally. And once more the Ghost's thoughts seemed to slip away and he began to talk of something else.

"I was never made to feel. I am one of those, who Silence was created for. I could have done it for her. _With her_." His words held the darkest bitterness. "But now she's gone, I won't make it. There is nothing left to hold me." Nothing but a few threads of guilt, love and promises. And he already felt them fading, cutting deeper and deeper the thinner they became. "Not in the long run," he added, then paused again.

No, his thoughts hadn't slipped away, Judd thought. He was simply treating him as a friend, offering him a look inside his soul before he made the inevitable request. So he listened.

"She survived all this time but she hadn't yet learned to live. I didn't see that. And I didn't see how they got to her. I was blind. I should have known. She had these breakdowns, bad ones, where her mind would be swamped by the residual, that's how she called the emotional impact of her killings. She compartmentalized that part of her mind. And they were getting worse. Right before… - right before I admitted I had broken Silence, one of her human friends was killed. And she was attacked by Ming, Tatiana and Shoshanna. They almost got inside her shields."

Judd had never seen the man he'd known as the Ghost for years look so human. Nothing of the ever frozen Psy mask was left, his features were tense, he did those little motions with his head, as if he was shaking it in denial or disbelief of everything that had happened. And his eyes… those eyes seemed so hollow but at the same time restless, as he spoke of those painful memories. The only thing that made him sound like a Psy was that he kept searching for words, whenever he described something emotional. Or maybe even that was human in his situation.

"But then we started being together…" he continued. "Like this. Share affection… Everything felt so intense. I thought it would be enough to … Or maybe I just got distracted. I didn't see that the process hadn't stopped. I only saw the part of her that wanted to heal. But there were other parts of her. One even wanted to take revenge, to kill." His eyes squeezed shut for a moment as he recalled her breakdown after her friend Liza's death. How had he been able to ignore this? "And I thought that was the worst. But there was that other part, the one that just wanted it to be all over, to join the ones whose life she has taken… You know what's the worst? I can still feel her. There's still a connection to that empty shell. Her personality is staring at me like a skull with hollow eyes."

No, this wouldn't help. Judd had thought talking might bring the other man relief, but it only seemed to make it worse. "You couldn't have known. I've seen people, who felt all their lives, go blind, when it comes to someone they love."

"It doesn't matter now, does it?" The words sounded hollow, empty.

"It still matters to you. Kaleb, I hope she can find peace now. And I hope one day you can too." Judd really didn't know what else to say, how to comfort the man that just hadn't had the luck, he had had.

"I will, if you grant me what I am about to ask of you." And finally he spoke about his plan that was as logical, as inevitable as it could be.

Judd should have known, should have thought of it. Of course there was only one way to kill the Ghost, when he finally succumbed to the darkness within.


	81. Chapter 81

**Chapter 81**

Faith felt dizzy and vulnerable, almost naked without her Psy abilities. But in the end there hadn't been another way. Ashaya had had to give her something that numbed her Foresight, so she wouldn't be tortured by her visions anymore. It had taken a long time for her to agree, because she had hoped until the end that there might be some solution, anything that they might hold on to, any indication that the fate of the Net she'd seen again and again in excruciating detail, could be prevented. She had even actively looked for it until she'd lost consciousness from the pain and terror it caused her. When she'd woken up she'd had dried blood under her eyes, nose and ears and a mate that was going crazy with worry. That was when she'd finally taken the M-Psy's offer to give her the drug that cut down on her ability to see the future. Since that was her cardinal ability the dose had to be so high it totally wiped her other mental skills as well. But still sometimes a vague knowing of death and terror pushed through, reminding her that it had been the right decision. That didn't change the fact that she felt useless now, sometimes even like a traitor to her people.

Right now she was trying to concentrate on the meeting with SnowDancer. She still tried to do her best to be useful although she was losing hope for her race. She and Vaughn had met her father earlier to get reliable information on the Situation in the Psy-Net and the state of the war. What he'd told them hadn't been comforting: Within a few weeks the increased traffic toward the sectors that no longer executed rehabilitation, had turned into a steady stream of refugees that had soon surpassed the capacities of the local tourism infra structure. To their advantage most of the refugees were still so used to the Psy lifestyle that suppressed almost every need in the name of efficiency. They didn't mind close and crowded quarters or rationed food. The San Francisco based Councilors had set up remote camps, from where they organized the integration into the sector. And the Psy had a new reason to be efficient. So the people at the camps had even started to self-organize in various ways, many of them preparing for physical fights. Most of them were still mainly Silent after all. Only the children started to adapt to emotion after being taken out of Protocol training. Anthony had even shown them video sequences of Psy children playing between rows of tents: Children playing ball without ever touching it or suddenly giggling after only exchanging a few looks. Children playing a funny kind of hide and seek where the seeker just stayed in place calling out the hiding places of his friends.

In Kaleb's sector however it wasn't that peaceful. Ming had tried to close his borders, that hadn't been physically existent a few months ago. And finally, forced to choose between rehabilitation and the threat of death, people had begun to fight. The scenes her father had shown them were horrifying: None of them had ever seen a Psy war. Now it became evident, that the pictures of the physical fights weren't the worst. They all were to some degree used to the depiction of war. It were the silent fights that were the most gruesome. A shaky camera had taken a short sequence of streets full of civilians who dropped to the floor out of nothing, clutching their heads, blood leaking from their ears and noses. Then there was a sequence of soldiers standing on the defense lines calmly and then suddenly turning on each other and the population they were trying to protect. And then there were the incidences of which no picture would ever be taken: Psy vanishing without a trace, strange accidents of cars, trains and all sorts of vehicles on their way towards borders. It was as if the simple thought of leaving Ming's sector made Psy more prone to accidents or sudden mental breakdown. No, not _as if, _because that was exactly what it was.

The war had started to demand its first victims. And their numbers rose quickly.

"I'm glad you're out of the Net." Her father had said to her at the end of the meeting. "Not all of us are going to make it."

"I know father," she had replied simply. Then she had hugged him, and for the first time in her life, he had hugged her back. Complete and utter desperation, that was what it had taken for them to shed their lifelong appearance of indifference. Tears welled up in her eyes at those thoughts. Her father had always tried to let her know she mattered, but in a Silent way. And now this one embrace would probably stay the only.

"Faith, are you ok?" Sascha's soft voice broke into her thoughts. "Do you want to continue tomorrow?" The empath had sensed her distress and distraction.

But before she could answer, Vaughn did it for her. "Seriously Sascha, don't you think she'd be here, if there was any way to convince her to take a break. She has to see this through, see if there's anything we can do."

Faith was thankful her mate understood. She knew he was on the edge for weeks now and he'd drag her home and lock her up in his lair at the slightest sign it might help her. But it wouldn't. So he stayed by her side and let her sit and talk and think about possible solutions with anyone she chose. "I want to know about Kaleb. He is the key to all of this." She finally found her voice, addressing the SnowDancers, represented by Hawke, Sienna, Judd and a very unsettled Brenna who'd been rarely present to those meetings but seemed to refuse to let her mate out of her sight. "Are there any news?" She only hoped she could concentrate long enough to hear what they had to tell.

"I'm sorry Faith. He won't make it and he knows it." Judd's voice was calm but he really sounded as sorry as he claimed to be. It was rare for the former assassin to show this much emotion.

"You talked to him? What makes you so sure?" She wanted to know, seeming clearheaded for the first time during the meeting.

Judd glanced at his niece for a moment. Sienna displayed the appearance of a perfect soldier. It stung him a little that she could still do it like a true Psy. But she would have to be a Psy-soldier again, hopefully for the last time. "He asked for Sienna to take him down the moment he snaps."

Complete silence in the room.

"He gave me a permanent lock on his physical body. I'll teleport us to him and she'll do it, whenever it becomes obvious, he is beyond redemption," Judd elaborated coolly.

Hawke kept his silence, tensed up from head to toes as Judd related the inevitable. And Judd knew exactly how he felt. Had there been any other solution, he wouldn't have relied on Sienna himself. But there wasn't and they all knew it. As a cardinal X-Psy, her lethal cold fire was the only thing that could stop a man of Kaleb's powers. Of course Brenna had a field day reminding Hawke of his own words, about sending his mate into a volatile situation. It would have been funny, had the situation not been so grave.

"But what about the Net? I thought the whole point of not finishing off any Councilors was that the Net won't survive the death of any of them?" Lucas asked after his first surprise at the suggestion had ebbed away.

"As I said," Judd replied. "We will do it only if there's no other way."

"When my vision comes true," Faith whispered.

"Yes. Kaleb is going to meet with Anthony and Nikita soon to discuss ways to stabilize at least parts of the Net."

Again moments of silence lay heavy in the air.

"Ah shit! They don't deserve this!" Lucas muttered frustrated. Sure, Psy were generally considered a scourge of mankind by the other races. But the annihilation of their species? That was something else. "Maybe some of them do, but most of them are just trying to get by. And they _are_ trying to change."

No one objected. Every changeling in the room was happily mated to a Psy. Just as Hawke had found out some time ago, their world was no longer black and white. Even the Ghost whatever his motivations, had helped them time and time again.

Sascha even started to shake her head and murmur in disbelief. "It's not right. Alja should have helped them. We were so close to a solution when she spoke with Katya and Dev..."

"But she's gone. That option is no longer existent." Lucas tried to reason with his mate. He sent a silent caress along the mating bond, knowing how his gentle mate hurt at the idea of being unable to help.

"No!" she retorted suddenly. "What if there is a way to bring her back after all? I remembered something she said to Katya about the damage of Ming's construction in her mind being worse than rehabilitation."

Everyone understood at once, where this was leading. But no one said a word. This time no one wanted to be the one to take such a risk.

So it was the most gentle of them who had to suggest a path that they all might regret. "What if the children could bring her back?" Sascha was talking about Noor and Keenan. The Forgotten girl and the Psy boy who had healed Katya with their unique tandem ability, after Ming's contraption had ripped through her brain so bad everyone had thought her beyond recovery.

"You heard how he threatened us, didn't you?" Hawke countered the empath's suggestion. "I totally agree that we can't be hypocrites about helping them. But you have to consider carefully, whether you let him close to your pack."

"I know. But he wouldn't have to come close. Just her. And we have some kind of control now that he's given Judd the option to take him out." Sascha replied calmly. "I know, what I'm suggesting. And I wouldn't ask it of them. The decision should be between Ashaya and Dorian and Talin and Clay." She named the pack members who had virtually become the parents of the children in question. "No one will bear them any ill will, if they refuse."


	82. Chapter 82

**Chapter 82**

Initially Kaleb had felt calmer after he had ensured that he wouldn't be the one to taint the earth red with the madness that was growing inside him faster than ever since Alja was gone. He had been able to strategize and think clearly:

The other Councilors didn't give up easily, just as he'd expected. His spies had confirmed the other three still met irregularly but their actions didn't seem coordinated. They were all trying to get through this individually. There weren't any military campaigns directed at his territory but still the fighting had started at the borders of his sector. There had barely been official borders between the sectors governed by the different Councilors before. And except for a few border posts Shoshanna and Tatiana didn't do much to keep their citizens inside. Maybe they even hoped for stability if those they considered flawed left their territories.

Only Ming had put significant effort into border security. That he was his fiercest adversary, was something Kaleb had anticipated as well. But he would no longer matter when Silence fell. He'd told that to himself over and over again to quell the impulse to find the man and kill him on the spot for taking Alja from him. And it worked. His promise to Alja still held. The strings of her emotional web mentally binding his hands from killing. They did allow him however to ruthlessly stop anyone who tried to restrain those who'd seek protection from rehabilitation in his sector. That he cleared enforcement stations of the refugees they detained and destroyed their holding cells, was something she would have approved. That he wiped out border patrols, wherever most people tried to cross, she would have at least understood. Soldiers died. That was how war worked.

It was harder to find those who would attack inside the Net. But he wasn't alone there. Rebellious forces were on the rise ever since the Council had broken and even more so since rehabilitation was no longer a threat in half of the world. Anthony hadn't yet taken his own side of the rebellion to the open. "With you, our goals now have a very strong face," he'd said. "As long as those goals align and the situation is so volatile, it is better for anyone else not to be too visible."

And the change had started showing inside the Net as well. His own sector had become the most stable regarding psychotic violence. Anthony's and Nikita's sectors followed closely. He theorized that it was because the people there felt the most. Even if it was mostly negative emotion, it seemed enough that they allowed it. It took pressure off the state of the Net. Their need for violence had gotten a new direction. Apparently it wasn't necessary that the Psy felt positive emotions. Just feeling at all and giving the suppressed negative emotions an outlet calmed the insane core of the problem. It fueled however the war.

He had checked on the dead spaces in the Net, where the rot had eroded all life before. And sometimes he had seen them, thin threads of silver crossing the emptiness, keeping it from fracturing further. The Net had started to heal. Somehow the flow of data had started again, strengthened the weakened fabric of the Net, at least in some areas. It filled him with a slow and bitter pain that Alja could not see this new hope.

It might just be enough for the Net to survive, when it lost one of his biggest power-centers, Kaleb's mind. At least he had to cling to that hope, because in other areas the rot was growing ever faster. Maybe they'd have to act more literal on the words of his speeches than he'd intended. _We have to cut this cancer out of ourselves and hope we'll survive as a race._

He'd finally agreed to a meeting with Nikita and Anthony to organize a failsafe for the Net. He'd do this for her and then die in peace. That was his last hope.

Yes, he had been calm.

And then Judd had come with his suggestion, with that other hope he had abandoned almost completely. But the thread hadn't torn yet.

"You trust me with your life. Would you also trust me with hers?" the former Arrow had asked in the shadows of Father Perez' church. "We may have a way to help her. But you can't come with her. They won't allow you near."

His words had been simple. He didn't have to tell him, that his life was forfeit the moment he decided to do anything than blindly accept their conditions. And Kaleb didn't care.

"I'll agree to anything if it might bring her back." It had been a whisper. "I will trust you."

"I also won't teleport to save my energy in case I need it for you."

"I know. I'll bring her to the border of changeling territory and leave her in your care from there."

He hadn't been able to say much more. Hope and desperation choked him up inside, making his voice and his body tremble so hard he had teleported back and let Aden check, if he was healing right.

The Arrow had reacted surprised at Kaleb's sudden request, after he had refused any medical attention over the course of the last weeks.

"You're physically fine. The biocompatible components are fully integrated. Within a few months we can take out the artificial parts." _A few months…_ that was far more than Kaleb had been planning on. But now… his heart stuttered again at the sudden wave of hope that flooded him. But he couldn't tell the man why suddenly his body should be important again. No one could know there was hope, and even less where that hope came from.

* * *

Kaleb met Anthony and Nikita in a highly secure vault in the PsyNet. Anthony and his rebels had provided one that was out of reach of the other Councilors but just as secure as the old Council chambers had been. He didn't feel secure however. He was on the edge, ever since he'd left Alja with Judd.

Still he had to get through this meeting. They had to find a solution for the Net.

"Let's start with the sectors of the others: Ming and Tatiana report a decline in interpersonal violence," Nikita began.

"That could be a lie," Anthony pointed out. "I have information that confirms the rate of rehabilitation personnel calling in sick has increased way above statistical expectations in all three of their sectors."

"That may be, but my spies report that the statistics are genuine. The sectors with the amped rehabilitation rates are stabilizing," Nikita clarified unruffled. "But that effect is not going to last."

"How do you know?" Kaleb asked.

"I have someone in Tatiana's sector. That's an image of the core region." She pulled up a shot of the Net-section. There was a big black stain at its busy center.

"It's no longer confined to quiet fringe sections." Anthony no longer hid his concern, when he saw the image.

But Nikita wasn't done. "That's not all." She zoomed into the mental 3D image. And the others went quiet. They all had seen enough images of the rot that eroded the Net to instantly spot the difference. The threads were no longer collecting in a pool, but flaring out in fine streaks right between the thousands of minds occupying that region.

"Does it affect the minds in the region?" Kaleb had seen often enough what it did to a mind to get in contact with the disease.

"It seems not. Not yet," she stated.

"Our sectors are erratic but the growth of the stain stagnates. I would say that is the better sign." Anthony didn't sound as certain as he wished he were. "But we can't rely on the hope that the effect persists. The uncontrolled emotion you foster in your sector and in the rebellious forces might spill over into uncontrolled violence." He directed that statement at Kaleb. "So we must take precautions for all eventualities."

"I already have," the other man responded calmly.

"For a complete breakdown of the Net?" Nikita couldn't believe Kaleb planned this far in the state he'd been in for the last few weeks.

"We should consider splitting the Net," was his suggestion.

"That's impossible, were designed to relink together." She found his suggestion just as irrational as she had expected.

Anthony however wasn't as opposed to the idea. He had had far more time to adjust to the thought of what would happen to the Psy if Silence truly fell, had prepared for it for a long time. "With a few trained anchors on the edges of each section we could control that effect."

"And how do you expect to organize the separation?" Nikita wasn't convinced easily.

"I'll cut the Net myself." The others didn't have to question his ability to do so. They had seen the result of his encounter with the other Councilors. "I'll cut out a wide range of it around the contaminated areas. The rot has spread out from the center in a few main directions. Three or four sections should suffice. After the information we just collected about the stability in different sectors, we have reason to believe that the more healthy sections could stabilize on their own if they abolish Silence completely."

"But that still means we leave millions to die. There are many minds left in those areas." Now it was Anthony who gave voice to his doubts.

"The alternative is risking, they take you with them." Kaleb didn't include himself in the prediction. Too fragile was the hope that Judd and the changelings would really bring Alja back to him.

"I'm willing to strike any deal that gets me and as many of my employees as possible through this alive. So if you say it's technically possible, I vote to prepare for the possibility of a split."

"But if we could save all of them…" Anthony began.

"That would be preferable, yes."

The discussion went on almost like one of their former Council sessions, rational, calm. Only it should have never come that far. Considering splitting the Net, leaving those behind, whose minds were located too close to the infected areas, it would have broken Alja's heart. Again the memory of her slammed into Kaleb with vicious force. He was so used to it by now, that he didn't notice at first that this memory hadn't just come from his own subconscious. But then he felt the tug. Something pulled at him, at the connection that had felt like it was just bleeding out into the emptiness ever since Alja was gone.

"Alja!"

Without further announcement Kaleb vanished from the mental vault, leaving the other two behind.


	83. Chapter 83

**Chapter 83**

Ashaya knew they had made a mistake, the moment Kaleb appeared right beside Alja's chair. And of course he brought with him a telekinetic shield that didn't allow any of them to even come close to him. But that wasn't the worst. The worst was: the children were still working on Alja, touching her, _inside_ the range of that shield. Her son was right in front of her eyes and yet totally out of her reach. And possibly he was in the claws of a monster.

"Keenan!" Her scream sounded simultaneously with Dorian's "What the fuck! I knew we couldn't trust him!"

Dorian and Clay were already pushing and fighting the invisible wall that separated them from the children. But Kaleb didn't even seem to see the children, nor anyone else in the room, anyone but Alja. His eyes were focused solely on her still empty face. "Alja?" he asked, his voice trembling.

"We have to get the children out of there!" Talin called out even more desperate than Ashaya. Then she whispered: "Noor, Keenan get here!" Maybe Kaleb wouldn't notice if they left his shields.

"Don't be angry mommy. I called him," Keenan stated with utter innocent calm, not leaving Alja's side. "He needs to be with her."

That was when Kaleb finally looked at the children. And everyone in the room froze. Even the changelings stopped attempting to get inside the shield or make any sound. No one wanted to do anything that might trigger aggression in the man they all knew to be at least borderline insane by now.

But there was no aggression. Kaleb only stared at them confused for long seconds before he uttered: "I thought Alja called me."

"No, _I_ did. When we were inside. I pulled that string, your special link," Keenan explained, showing not a hint of fear or insecurity, as if talking to Kaleb was the most natural thing in the world. "You're her special friend. You know that don't you?"

Kaleb nodded, his eyes almost pleading with the small boy in front of him. "Yes, she's very special to me."

Ashaya held her breath. Silent tears spilled out of her eyes. But she didn't dare to move.

"Then you need to be with her, even if she's not there right now," Keenan continued. Not looking at Judd and Sienna who had teleported in on Ashaya's distress call.

"She's gone?" His voice was barely more than a whisper. But the children understood. Simultaneously they both lifted their small hands to each grip one of Kaleb's bigger ones.

Several of the adults in the room couldn't suppress a gasp. Judd put a hand on Sienna's shoulder. She'd only intervene if it was absolutely necessary. But the children didn't even seem to notice. They just looked very serious and compassionate.

"We don't know. We did everything we could. We wove her head all back together. But it's like…"

When Keenan hesitated, Noor finished his sentence: "It's like there's nobody at home."

The simple words of the kid tore Kaleb apart. They described precisely what he felt when he dared to test the connection that somehow still tied him to Alja's empty shell in a torturous way. _There's nobody at home._

And softly like a whisper, one of the threads of Alja's web dissolved.

It only made the others pull tighter, cut harder. He couldn't fall now, not in the presence of those children, who held his hands like that could give him any comfort.

He had never hurt children. Never but that one time. And the truth was, he wouldn't have forgiven himself, if he had hurt any of them badly or even killed them. But that guilt, it hadn't seemed to matter when he'd seen Alja in mortal danger. Now he knew better. It had mattered. It still mattered. He could have been a better man. And for her he still had to try to be. So he couldn't even let the children see his hopelessness. He forced a smile and reciprocated the pressure of their hands on his. "Thank you. Both of you. You really helped a lot." Finally he lifted his gaze to the others in the room: Psy, humans and changelings with varying emotions from panic to anger frozen on their faces. "I will take this secret to my grave. But it's good to know the world has a future like them."

Then he vanished with Alja, as if he'd never been there.

The children were surrounded by their worried parents within seconds. Ashaya pressed her son so close, he complained about not getting enough air, obviously completely unaware, why the adults were making such a fuss.

Only later when they were preparing to go home, Noor and Keenan kept clinging to each other as if they expected to never see each other again. So they decided they'd all spent the night at the home of their alpha's family, where Sascha could have an empathic eye on the kids and they could discuss what had happened.

When they got in the car to drive there Keenan even started crying. And even though display of any kind of emotions was encouraged in the pack, her brave boy rarely did it. She and Talin sat in the back of the car, Noor on Talin's lap and Keenan between them, while their mates occupied the front.

"Don't be afraid," Ashaya whispered to her son. "That man won't come back again." She tried to reassure him, but felt nothing close to secure herself.

"I'm not afraid of him." Keenan's voice sounded far braver than he looked. "I'm sad for him. Alja was his special friend and now she's gone. I think he will never be happy again."

She gave Talin a worried look over his head. But the other woman looked just as helpless, the girl on her lap already fast asleep, exhausted from the work they'd done. "What do you mean, when you say special friend?"

"Her special friend," He repeated simply but continued, when his mother still didn't seem to understand. He sounded almost annoyed at having to explain something that seemed absolutely logical to him. "The one she plays special games with, games they only play with each other."

Another idea shot through Ashaya's mind: "Keenan did you see any adult stuff in there?" Oh God, why had no one ever thought about what memories the children might access when they used their healing ability?

Keenan wrinkled his little forehead. "Adult stuff? No, we don't look at the stuff in her mind. I just carry Noor, while she does her weaving. That's where she knew that Alja had a friend. She knew him through her mind."

"Noor could look outside her mind?" Ashaya felt another surge of panic. Kaleb had assured Judd that Alja was shielded absolutely airtight from the Net. Otherwise they wouldn't have let the children close to her.

Keenan gave a small sigh at her continued questions. "No of course not. No one can reach in or out of the shields he made for her. They're really strong." His eyes widened with admiration, as he said it. "But nothing can shield the special link. Noor just knows she has a special friend, because there is that link."

"Can you tell me how that link looked? Or can you even show me?" Keenan had already learned to transmit telepathic pictures on demand.

But he shook his head now. "It doesn't look like anything. It just feels. He's always with her. Like Noor and I. He's like really, really important. So he's still there with her – even though she's not." He made a pause, his face saddening once more. Then he yawned. "Mommy, can I go sleep now? I'm really tired."

"Of course you can, baby. Sorry, Mommy kept you up so long," Ashaya answered, stroking a hand over his hair.

Usually Keenan would complain about her babying him. But now he just cuddled into her and closed his eyes, one of his hands still wrapped tightly around Noor's. And Ashaya wondered. Could the child have been talking about a mating bond? He was determined Noor was his mate even though none of them were changeling. But no, Psy didn't mate each other. Keenan was probably just exhausted and his child mind trying to explain something he couldn't understand.


	84. Chapter 84

**Chapter 84**

Children.

Of course it was the children again.

It was the easiest way to get to him. Ming had found that one weak point in Alja and he kept on using it on Kaleb. He should have known. He had known. It was an obvious distraction: A highly trained unit of assassins attacking primarily the children in one of the refugee camps at his borders. In broad daylight. Designed for him to notice at once and react.

He had teleported there without thinking twice, but he had believed Alja safer at his Moscow HQ. What else could he have done? Even if he had taken her with him, it would still have distracted him for those few precious minutes.

The moment he had contained the situation, wasting the life of twenty five of Ming's elite soldiers, he teleported out. Not back to Moscow but locking directly on her. He was blocked by a Tk shield.

They must've known he was able to teleport to people.

He tried again, splitting his energy to do the move and break the shield in the process. Had they actually thought they could stop him? Probably not, but his first failed teleport had given them enough warning to move again and keep moving. How many teleporters did it take to move her around that fast?

In the end they weren't fast enough. By the third move Kaleb knocked one of them out of mid teleport, leaving a strange translucent veil of human cells, blood and scraps of clothing hanging in midair for a split second before it dropped down in a puddle on the floor in an empty apartment. Kaleb saw two more of those apartments mere seconds apart, before they were to slow to escape again.

The sixth location was a very public place: Tourists scattered screaming when five men, a woman and a split second later a Psy Councilor appeared in the Champ de Mars park – right in the middle of Paris. They had teleported to an open patch of grass, framed by rows of trees and gravel paths that were buzzing with people that time of day. The Eiffel Tower loomed over the whole scene in some distance.

Kaleb didn't understand immediately why they had done it. Why did they keep together? Why hadn't Ming abandoned his mission the moment he realized Kaleb followed them? Why was the other Councilor still right there, as if he was just waiting to be executed by him?

He didn't think about those questions long. He didn't care. He pushed the four soldiers away with Tk, sending them flying in every direction. They crumbled to the floor several feet away, none of them rising again.

By the time he got to Ming LeBon himself, the public park was as good as empty. Only some of the more daring witnesses stood on the edges, gaping or filming. Kaleb didn't even look at them. First he sliced off the telepathic fingers the man had dared to poke inside Alja's head, then he suspended him in midair, to check on Alja. She seemed physically fine and mentally still as unresponsive as ever since the rehabilitation. She just stood there as if nothing had happened at all, still wearing the silk and angora gown he had dressed her in. White and soft – the thing most opposite to the uniform she'd had to wear all her life. Her head was bent slightly to one side, in that gesture he knew only too well by now – as if she was trying to figure something out, but never really got to the point. Her eyes were huge, black and empty. So empty.

And the shields he'd built for her were gone. The remnants of her mind were wide open to the Net and anyone physically close. She should be screaming in pain, her mind crumbling under the weight of telepathic background noise. But she didn't, no longer having a mind to be disturbed by the onslaught of other people's thoughts wavering through space.

And deep inside Kaleb's psyche another thread of Alja's intricate web dissolved soundlessly.

But still he hung there, suspended between life and insanity, only focused on making her safe again. Before he could even begin to rebuild any protection for her, Ming started attacking him telepathically. The other Councilor might not be a match to him in the physical realm but telepathically he was brutally effective, slicing away at Kaleb's shields while he was distracted.

He tried to deflect the attacks, while he built up new shields for Alja in the Net. But they dissolved again, the moment he constructed them. With his attention split between Ming's attacks and her mind it took him too long to find the viruses that were anchored in her mind and caused any shield to crumble at once. This kind of virus would have been useless on a healthy mind. It was special design. This must be Tatiana's work. Of course the other Councilor had her fingers in this but stayed behind safe lines herself. It had always been her strategy. But no longer Ming's. He had come out, stayed even after being discovered. And his attacks grew more and more distracting. Kaleb realized he had to get rid of him before he could take care of Alja's safety. He increased the telekinetic pressure on his throat. He still couldn't kill him for the sake of the Net, but he didn't have to be conscious to keep the Net stable.

"This is a public location Kaleb. And it's in my territory. Everyone will know what you did here. This will be your political death," his former colleague croaked.

Kaleb paused startled for a second. So that was why Ming had chosen the location, even dared to stay on site after Kaleb caught up. How absolutely absurd that he should care for his political reputation!

Barely anyone had ever seen Ming's face. And those few who had had never seen the utter confusion it displayed at that moment. "What is it with you?" He pressed the words through constricted airways. "I was inside her. There's nothing left of her. Why are you still acting as if she has an influence over you?" Even as speaking got harder, he didn't stop his attacks on Kaleb's mind. This couldn't be true. He knew Kaleb. Something must still influence him… Even more than by the invisible fingers closing around his throat, Ming was bothered by the fact that he seemed to have miscalculated and he didn't even see where he had made the mistake.

_I was inside her. There's nothing left of her. _Ming's words echoed in Kaleb's mind. Ming had been the only one Alja had ever been afraid of, the only one she ever thought could break through her impenetrable shields. In the end he had. And he hadn't found her. The one man, she'd ever feared she might not be able to hide from, hadn't found her, when she was at her weakest, unprotected and alone. It was undeniable proof that she really was gone.

And she'd never come back to him.

At last Alja's web fell apart. Just like that.

There was no reprieve. No slow disintegration of its strings like it had started within the days before. In the end it hadn't been so complex a web at all. All the promises, all those little threads, they all unraveled when the only one that had ever mattered tore: The hope of getting her back.

And everything stopped to matter, as if the force that held the world together had simply ceased to exist. He could have died then and there, if not for the hate and anger that built inside him and were directed at the single being who had taken everything from him.

Ming.

And he couldn't escape.

He let his Tk gather around the man, drew it together slowly increasing the pressure, not on his throat this time – but on all of him.

"Kaleb stop! You're risking the Net! Your Net! You can have it now. Don't you see?" Still there was no real emotion on Ming's face neither in his tone.

"I only wanted her." Kaleb's voice was flat, monotone.

"That's impossible! She's gone. She can't influence you now." Finally able to see Kaleb wouldn't stop, Ming sent out a distress call for someone to get him out. But even if there'd been a teleporter left for him to reach, no one would have been able to penetrate the telekinetic walls Kaleb had built around him. And those walls were closing in fast.

Kaleb let more and more telekinetic energy flow around his adversary. He didn't even bother to avert the other Councilor's telepathic attacks – pitiful attempts to save his skin. Ming would not live long enough to defeat him now. There was just one thing he had to understand before he died. One emotion he had to feel.

"It was never her. I _chose_ to feel, Ming. I _chose_ her. You should not have taken her from me."

And finally it spread over Ming's usually icy features: Fear. Mortal fear that contorted the red birthmark on his temple in a way it had done only once before, when a four year old girl had flung her powers at him in a desperate attempt to be understood. He hadn't understood her back then. But now he started to understand Kaleb. And this time that was the very reason for his fear.

Kaleb wouldn't have been able to stop himself had he wanted. All that pent up emotion he had suppressed, not only during those few weeks since Alja was gone, but long before, it all wanted out. The helplessness as a child, the fear, then the hate, the thirst for revenge against his mentor that had never been quenched, the years of brutal strangulation of his impatience to finally obtain complete control, to be finally free, the devastation, when after a few short moments of believing he had a chance, that chance had been snuffed out with the stars in Alja's eyes. But he was no empath. He could do nothing with all that emotion. He could only let the pressure flow into his Tk and let the emotion direct that power against the only aim left. And after another moment that was an eternity of terror in Ming's eyes, he let the Tk implode on Ming's body.

Everything turned red.

* * *

The haze cleared. Kaleb was alone in the park but for Alja's body, that still stood there as unmoving as ever. Ming had been teleported out again, was Kaleb's first thought. But no, he couldn't have. Slowly Kaleb let his gaze drift across the floor. And it dawned on him that the sheen of red that still blurred his vision had nothing to do with his perception. It really covered everything around him.

There was nothing left of Ming LeBon but a spray of blood on the grass before him – on Kaleb's clothes – on his hands – his face. Only Alja seemed to have been miraculously spared but for a few pinpricks of red on the hem of her pristine white dress.

He simply stared at the red mist that had been Ming LeBon and Alja who stood out amidst it like a beautiful lily among crushed roses. But he didn't react. Couldn't. Everything suddenly seemed so unreal. Where there had been blazing hate and anger moments before, there was now just a dull empty feeling. And somewhere deep, deep below, there was the pain. A pounding pain that was eating its way through his soul at an impossible speed. Funny how he knew it was pain, since all he felt was an almost crushing numbness.

For a moment there was absolute silence around him. Not a single sound stirred the gruesome scene and even the constant whispering of the Net had gone mute.

And then the Net started to quake. Softly at first, like small ripples in the mirror smooth surface of a quiet lake. And the ripples spread from where Ming's star had blazed with cardinal brightness moments before.

Whispers started to rise, first a few, then millions of frightened voices started swirling around his mind. He tried to tune them out. And found he couldn't. His telepathic shields were basically torn to shreds by Ming's attacks. And the tattered remains barely kept the hum of the other minds out. There was no barrier left against the storm that gathered on the psychic plane.

_What had he done?!_

Slowly the numbness that had coated his thoughts like sticky cotton wool lifted and his mind started working again. Ming was gone. The Net would collapse around the vacuum he left. Kaleb shifted his focus to the psychic plane. And he saw a horror only a Psy could understand. There was a gaping hole in the Net where Ming's star had vanished. Streams of data were disintegrating into a vortex of darkness, of nothingness. And there were so many broken strings, so many strong connections torn off, their ragged ends flapping in the void of the mental space like worms curling on hot asphalt. There shouldn't be so many. There hadn't been so many when Henry had died. Kaleb shook his head, tried to get his thoughts clear. But the voices were just too loud, the whispers getting louder, more panicked, as the ripples vibrating across the Net strengthened.

The people, they had to live. Alja would have wanted them to. He had to save them. She would have wanted him to. He had to stop it.

He could stabilize it!

He reached out with his fused ability and grabbed the loose ends of those strings trying to connect them like he had done with the diseased parts of the Net. But there were too many and they kept slipping away, their motion volatile. He held on tighter, gathered as many as he could, but the waves got ever stronger as if an invisible force was moving the fabric of the Net from within, making it twist out of control. There was no chance of mending it. All he could do was try to hold on and stop the structure of the Net from unraveling further. But the strings were pulling taut, threatening to break from the grip of his Tp/Tk-ability. And the screaming of millions of Psy minds that filtered through his battered shields was slowly getting louder – until it would be heard inside the vault at the core of his mind, until it woke up the monster.

Screaming always woke the monster.

* * *

Fully focused on the mental plane, Kaleb didn't notice that the woman who had stood close to him in the park was no longer silent at last, nor was she still as immobile. Within seconds after the tumult in the Net had started, her body began to seize. She dropped down in the grass, her limbs shaken, contorted by convulsions.

Even her soulless body could feel the pain as the writhing Net tore at her link, the turmoil in it no longer blocked by Kaleb's shields or any shields at all. It spread along her nerves and inside her brain, desperate, burning. And her voice, that hadn't even whispered for weeks, tore screaming from her throat.

* * *

Kaleb tried to anchor himself on something, smooth the surges, but there was nothing to hold on to, every part of the Net was writhing furiously. The shockwaves were throwing minds around like leaves in an ocean. Mental screams echoed through the havoc, piercing his mind.

His thoughts scattered. His mind worked too slow. He noticed it, but he couldn't help it. He drew deep from the vastness of his strength, holding the severed threads and ropes of the Net in an iron grip.

And finally as he chanced a look into the vastness of the PsyNet the waves seemed to calm, at least a little. Maybe he could connect the torn fabric to his own star somehow. If only they didn't pull at his mind so hard, tearing his mental functions apart until he could hardly think. But he had to hold on. Alja was gone. This was all he could do for her.

_Please don't kill my dream._

And he wouldn't. He would honor her legacy. This was what she'd sacrificed herself for. Even if he had been able to think clear, he probably wouldn't have understood how the thought of her still gave him such strength, how the very reminder of his loss slowed the gnawing pain from swallowing him completely how it urged him to fight on and not give in to the madness of the voices screaming in his mind now.

But there was one voice that drowned them all.

_Nooo shhhhiiiiields!_ It screeched, sounding like a thousand nails raking across a chalkboard. Kaleb had never heard that voice before. Never thought he would, because its owner never had a voice before. But it had now. And he knew at once what it was that slithered towards him, visible only because it was even darker than the black sky of the PsyNet: The DarkMind. It had finally come for him, drawn to all the pain and hate that swirled inside him, called to him by the gruesome chant of the monster that had awoken deep inside his mind.

_Stop the blood, stop the heart,_

_Or just tear them apart…_

A vast blackness crested over Kaleb's mind unchecked by his shredded shields. Fine tendrils of oily black found their way even through the smallest fissures, pushing inside, widening the cracks and finally crashing in on him. Hate, fear, anger, sadness, guilt and above all desperation so profound it made him want to give up, to let go of the Net he was still trying to stabilize.

He tightened his grip on the loose ends of its strings and started running inside his mind.

There was still one place in the center of his mind that was protected better than anything in the Net. One place with impenetrable walls that had been untouched for years. Fumbling at the mental locks and blocks, he pushed himself through openings barely big enough for his mental presence, slamming doors shut behind him, that he'd never thought he'd see the other side of again.

But once he was inside, he knew he had never really left.

He had never left that room his mentor had taken him to. He had never left the room in which the monster was born.

_I tried. Believe me I tried. _He spoke into the hollowness of his own mind, lonely as he had always been. _But I failed you. Forgive me._

Then the monster took over, what was left of him.

* * *

Psy started breaking down all around the world. Some just fell were they stood, some froze in place, their bodies tensing up by an invisible force, others clutching their heads in pain, trying to withstand the force that tore at them on the psychic plane. But it wasn't limited to the Net. The whole world seemed to have started to tremble. Humans didn't feel it yet. But most changelings could. It was no longer a psychic phenomenon. But it was not like an earthquake either. Not just the earth, everything – even the air – had started to vibrate in the eerie rhythm of a mind tumbling into insanity.

Sienna sensed it too. She'd been out for a walk with Hawke, a short carefree pleasure in all the chaos, when suddenly all the little noises of the animals stopped and a strange humming pressure started in her head. Her mate went very still beside her.

"Fuck." It seemed to be his single favorite word, ever since the war in the Psy world had gotten real and started to involve his mate and his pack. He crushed her close and bent his head to nuzzle at her throat.

She understood at once. "I'll come back safe and sound," she promised.

"But it'll break you." He didn't want this for her. Didn't want any of this.

"Then you'll help me through it." She held on to that thought: Her tough, strong mate, who could handle her inner demons as well as any danger from outside. She hugged him back and pressed him as close as she could. There wouldn't be much time now. She didn't need it. She knew what she was about to do. And as for Hawke, no time in the world would have been enough to say goodbye, when she headed into danger like this.

He pulled back enough to look into her eyes. "You're so brave. You humble me," he stated simply. And she shuddered at the intensity in his words.

But before she could say anymore Judd appeared beside them. Time was up.

"He's in Paris," he began without any unnecessary explanation, pulling out a small video device that started playing a shaky clip as he tapped on the screen.

It showed a formerly, neatly arranged park that seemed to be hit by a hurricane. Trees were uprooted, branches torn off and even their thick trunks hurled several feet in the air. In between countless everyday objects were crushed, ground to rubble: Benches, trash cans, sunshades, entire snack booths and even parts of nearby buildings. Even through the small device a screeching, creaking sound filled the whole scene. It was the sound of metal beams bending, grinding against each other. The Eiffel Tower was about to collapse.

The vid zoomed out a little, revealing the fact that the person who'd taken it stood on a building that was far away from the events in the park. From the new angle the whole extent of destruction became visible. The monumental tower was the only thing in the entire area that had – so far – withstood the outburst of telekinetic energy. Everything else was thrown around like leaves in an unnatural storm that swirled in the shape of a sphere around one spot several yards in front of the creaking tower. The forces seemed to be stronger toward the center of that sphere. And flickering in between the flying debris stood a man, rigid, totally still, in the eye of the storm. That center was irregularly illuminated by flashes of lightning that seemed to be generated within that orb of flying chaos.

Then the footage ended abruptly.

"That was when technology was hit, about four minutes ago. Half of Europe is without power. Apparently no electric device is working for hundreds of miles," Judd explained.

Sienna just nodded, going into soldier mode. She couldn't afford to think of anything but how to complete this task now. "The psychic plane?" she asked. Even with the visible chaos, that area was far more important for the Psy.

"As far as I could find out, it's catastrophic. First a shockwave crashed through the Net, already killing an unknown number. Then something countered that shockwave. It calmed the situation at first but now minds are starting to get crushed – and thrown out of the Net."

"This is Faith's vision. He's tearing the Net apart." It was just an assessment. There was no emotion in her voice.

Hawke had to suppress a growl. His wolf didn't like that its mate turned cold, didn't want to let her go. He brushed against his insides, pushing to be let out, take over control. But the wolf didn't understand that this was necessary. So Hawke reined him in, forced himself to stand absolutely still. _Later_, he told his wolf. Later they could help his mate again. But no matter how it tore at him, there was nothing he could do now but let her do, what only she could.

"There's no way to know what we'll be teleporting into," Judd continued. "I can't bring us too close to his body. The forces seem to be most violent directly around him. We'll approach in small teleports from the outskirts of the city until we can see how close we can get. You won't have time to hesitate or take proper aim."

"Understood. Let's go."

"There also won't be time to avoid collateral damage."

"I know." She pressed her lips together, gave Hawke one last look and they were gone.

* * *

They teleported into the city, stopping twice for a few seconds to witness scenes of increasing destruction. Rain clouds had started to be pulled into the telekinetic storm, so in addition to the flying debris, water whipped all around them, making it near impossible to see.

"Once more," Judd informed her. "Then I'll need the rest of my energy to protect us from the rubble." He would bring them right inside the sphere to avoid as much collateral damage of her X-fire as possible. It was a risk. But killing innocents would be worse for Sienna. Judd hated that he had to put his niece through this. His family had escaped the Council years ago and still the Net wouldn't let them go. Maybe after today…

"I'm ready," Sienna answered.

The world shifted again, as Judd did the last teleport. When she felt her body reform, Sienna didn't hesitate. She didn't even have to look. By now she sensed the direction from which the psychic disturbance came with acute clarity.

Her mouth drawn into bitter strain she released the X-fire.

* * *

The debris that had been spinning around Kaleb lit up in a glowing sphere for a split second, then it simply vanished. And everything stopped: The uncanny storm, the psychic pressure in the air, only the screeching metal of the tower needed a few seconds more to settle.

Sienna closed her eyes and buried her face against Judd's chest. She couldn't watch the outcome of her powers. Not his time. He pressed her close for a second, then she heard him gasp.

She snapped her head back up. She couldn't break down, if the danger wasn't over. When she opened her eyes she didn't see the expected empty field that was usually everything her powers left behind. There shouldn't even be ashes left where Kaleb had been wrapped in chaos seconds ago. But although the wreckage had vanished in the X-fire, Kaleb still stood in place, unscathed, unmoving. He had been right at the center of where she'd aimed her ability. Still it was as if he was rooted to the earth. The rain that had been whipped around furiously seconds before now streamed in straight lines over his rigid figure. Every muscle in his body was locked, his hands fisted by his sides, his eyes almost as empty as Alja's had been all this time, the stars in them alternatingly hidden by total darkness and flashes of lightning that bore witness that inside him the storm still raged on. It was impossible, Sienna thought. Nothing could block her X-fire, nothing except –

Finally something did move. At Kaleb's feet another figure slowly rose, first to a kneeling position, then she shakily pushed herself to her feet. In this scene of destruction she looked strangely out of place with her flowing, white gown, that was unscathed but for a few smudges of grass and dirt, and a fine sprinkling of something red right down at the bottom that already began to fade in the downpour.


	85. Chapter 85

**Chapter 85**

A shock of psychic energy had washed up against Alja's shields and shocked her awake at once. What had happened? She'd been gone… Now she came back to the scent of thunderstorm and darkness, Kaleb's scent. But it was too heavy, the darkness in it too strong, the electric tension discharging violently. Something terrible was happening. And his powers were the cause. She had instinctively closed her shields and let them absorb the violent energy, the moment she regained consciousness. Now she looked up at him for long seconds, lifted a hand to the side of his unresponsive face.

Then she turned to the people who had arrived on the scene: Judd Lauren, a young woman with cardinal eyes and dark red hair, the black clad soldiers who were approaching from the edges of the chaos in the park. Arrows. Of course they had come as well.

"You need to leave. All of you," Alja said. Her voice sounded a little raspy but firm. Her eyes were no longer empty black pits. They held the starry sky of a cardinal again and were glowing even stronger, warmer. Not even her Silent comrades could hide their surprise.

They just stared at the woman who had apparently achieved the impossible: to return from rehabilitation.

When no one moved she pulled a glass blade from her sleeve. "I'll end this – one way or another. But this is my task. Mine alone. So please leave."

No one even argued. Whether it was out of surprise, respect or something else Alja couldn't tell. But she saw them all vanish out of the corner of her eyes.

She let the blade drop, the moment they were out of sight. She wouldn't lose him. Not again.

But when she turned back to Kaleb, he seemed to look right through her, his gaze still pure black ripped apart by flashes of lightning. She felt his power surge inside her shields on the physical and the psychic plane alike. Not long and she wouldn't be able to hold it. Inside her shields the chaotic storm of his uncontrolled powers, would build until it crushed her. She had to get through to him.

"I will not let you die. You deserve to live, to know happiness." She put her other hand on his face, too, pressed gently. No reaction. Instead she felt a strange kind of power, she couldn't block entirely. Something moved against her shields. It didn't harm them but it somehow pushed through.

"Do you hear me? Dying is not an option. Sacrificing myself was a mistake, one I do not intend to repeat with you." Carefully she let herself slip out on the psychic plane.

And when she opened her mental eyes, shock hit her: The oily black tentacles of the DarkMind were writhing around his mind, pushing through the holes in his damaged shields. She had steered clear of its creepy presence whenever she could, knowing it held all the fear, hate and desperation that also lay inside the dark part of herself. But her own fear didn't matter now. So she prepared for the onslaught of darkness, when she started to push past the twin of the NetMind, just hoping she was strong enough. The reaction was nothing she had expected. The moment she touched the black tentacles, they started to pull out of Kaleb's mind and dart toward hers. And then the strangest thing happened: When the slimy darkness touched her, she could feel it brush over her mind like she always had felt the NetMind. But the tendrils didn't hurt her. The moment they came close to her, they became soft, almost transparent, just gently stroking her mind.

And then it started to talk. It communicated just like the NetMind. It used the same pictures. _I was looking for you. You help. You were with sister. _

Alja hadn't had much time to consider what had happened. She had stopped to exist some time ago. And then she had begun to exist again as she was pushed back inside her body. First there had only been excruciating pain. Then she had just reacted to the situation, to Kaleb being in danger, to the whole world seeming to fall apart. But now that the DarkMind spoke to her, she remembered fragments. Yes, it was true, she hadn't entirely stopped to exist, she'd been with the NetMind, been a part of the vast, incorporeal neosentience.

_You not empty. Your darkness stays with you. Not with me. You not desperate. You help. _The DarkMind continued.

Alja was sure she felt pretty desperate right now. She was there again with no idea how to fulfill that request for help, the NetMind had presented her so often and the DarkMind renewed now. But no, that was not the only thing she felt. Her love for Kaleb and for every living creature, that was still inside her too and it inspired a courage she never had expected in the face of terror and death. Always there had been hope inside her. Even as she had decided to sacrifice herself it had been in the hope of giving Kaleb and the rest of her race a chance. And she understood the DarkMind: It didn't have that hope. It was scared and alone. It had no love or courage. It had just all this darkness to contain.

And this darkness reflected a part of her like a mirror. But she didn't only see herself. She saw Kaleb too and all the other Psy, all those who had been alone with their darkness for a century. And she knew what to do.

She reached out with her empathy and answered. _I know your pain. I feel sorry for you. _Almost without conscious thought she transmitted a wave of compassion alongside the message. _And I want to help you. But I need him for that. You have to let him go. _Only when she said it, she realized it was true. She needed Kaleb to help. But how? She felt as if she knew everything but it still was out of her conscious reach.

_But he dark. So much dark. He like me. _The DarkMind still had some of its tentacles drilled into Kaleb's mind.

_We all are a little like you. We just tried to forget. But you can't have him. He's mine. There is someone who is yours. Your sister. You can go to her. _

Slowly and to Alja's utter surprise the Twin of the NetMind retreated fully, letting her close her shields around Kaleb.

The moment the darkness retreated the extent of damage became visible. Kaleb's shields were torn to shreds, the gates into his mind wide open. And Alja couldn't sense any mental presence. She opened another layer of shields to let it flow around both their minds. This should block out the telepathic noise from the Net. And it gave her a possibility to step inside.

Her heart clenched at the sight: What had once been one of the clearest, sharpest minds in the world lay in ruins. Shards of memories littered the entire space. It was dangerous enough to enter a functioning mind like she did now, not only with telepathic skills but with her entire own mental presence. And this wasteland – she could easily lose herself in it. But there was no other way but to go even deeper until she found him.

She waded through the chaos, moving carefully to not cause any more disturbances. It was futile. Wherever she moved, splinters of thoughts and memories whirled up like leaves in fall. There was barely any structure left to contain them and no one who might build such a structure. Where was Kaleb? Had the DarkMind taken him, like the NetMind had her? Deeper into the core of his mind she could make out a structure that seemed to have withstood. She moved toward it, trying to keep her orientation in the unfamiliar mind.

But then she noticed something that drew her attention among the cluttered contents of his brain. This shouldn't be here. It was just a fragment of a picture, unrecognizable but for its color, a color that was unique in the Net: a warm glowing gold. No, it couldn't be! Kaleb couldn't have that memory! Reason warned her not to lose herself in a disordered mind, but she had to know for sure. Frantically she searched through the debris, trying to find other pieces of the picture. Two more shards and the beginning of a mental connection were enough to identify the image with complete certainty. It was a picture of a mind – a mind Kaleb should never have seen.

She followed the connection, only half hoping it still led somewhere, after everything seemed to be torn to pieces. But she found a single word. _She_. And then to her surprise she felt an emotion connected to it: Hope. This was the one the NetMind had told him to save, his only hope, Her, the one he'd always been looking for.

"What have I done? – I didn't know," Alja whispered into the silence, horrified. Then she started running through the scene of destruction that Kaleb's mind had become, the golden shards dropping behind her. She ignored all the other fragments of memories, of mental constructs, her only goal getting deeper and deeper towards the core of his mind. She had to find him, or anything that was left of him, she had to make it right!

The deeper she went inside the denser the structures got: Layer upon layer of mental barriers, constructs to protect or to contain something. And with every layer the barriers got less abstract. Until they looked like they were made of real stone and concrete. She slowed her speed as she realized her steps were echoing between the walls. It was compulsory to touch them. She winced away when she saw her hand touch the rough surface of the stone. She could see her hand as if it was there in the flesh. Her own roaming mind no longer just a mental image but taking a make believe physical form. That was why it was so dangerous to enter so deep into another's mind: you couldn't hold your distance once you submerged this deep. The mind you entered set the rules. She brushed her fingers across the wall again. She felt a full sensory impression of a solid wall under her fingertips. No adult Psy had that kind of construct in his mind, even less a Silent Psy. A mental representation of something physical was usually only used by very young minds, before they'd learned to abstract, before they even learned to speak. Kaleb had begun to build this when he was an infant.

She had never seen such a maze of corridors. She had to actively remind herself that all of this was just a mental construct or she'd get lost. Whenever she came to a door, the impulse to open it with her make-believe hands that seemed all too physical in here was there. Everything looked so real in this part of his mind. It was easy to confuse with the physical world. Only when she concentrated she could perceive the mental constructs for what they were. As she went deeper concrete walls gave way to clean, white hallways.

Something flickered across the white paint, but when she looked closer it vanished. Then it happened again. A shadow at first, then it took the shape of a delicate face. Although she had never seen the face before, Alja knew it was the Swan girl, her memory connected to a crushing amount of guilt. By now the connections in Kaleb's mind were as open to her as if it were her own. At least there still were functioning connections. That meant his mind hadn't disintegrated completely. But no one seemed to control the memories that began to unfold on the walls more frequently the further she got. There were short scenes, like video projections: Councilor Enrique talking to her - no not to her - to Kaleb. He was disproportionately big and younger than in most of the pictures Alja found in her own memory. All of these were childhood memories.

Behind the next door Alja reached, she heard voices. She stopped for a moment to listen, but couldn't understand the continuous whispering. So she carefully disabled the lock and stepped through guardedly.

She had to blink for a moment, the light in here was so blinding. Then Alja remembered her eyes couldn't react like that on the mental plane. All of this was not real. But in here it was even harder to remember that. The memories she witnessed weren't confined to the cold, white glowing walls. Passing scenes seemed to take place right in the room, the few colors among the white too bright, too vivid. Councilor Enrique stood beside a hospital bed doing something she didn't understand. She only understood that it hurt the woman on the bed. It hurt her so bad she screamed, not only with her voice but also with her mind. She couldn't shut it out so it hurt her too. Made it hard to think, hard to remember what her teacher wanted from her.

"Come on Kaleb, I know you can do better. Keep them up!" The Councilor's voice was taunting as he spoke to her. No! Not to her! Alja shook her head, distanced herself again from the scene she saw. Only then she noticed the other person in the room. Not person, '_monster'_ Kaleb's mind insisted. This was the monster that had to stay locked up. But when Alja looked at the small creature, everything in her refused the word, his mind tried to force on her. Instead what she saw, broke her heart: In a corner of the room a small boy cowered, all of his short limbs tensed up, pressing his fisted hands over his ears and endlessly mumbling a little rhyme:

_Stop the blood, stop the heart,_

_Or just tear them apart._

_Make them mute, make them cease._

_When they're dead, they're at peace._

But he couldn't drown out the screams of the Councilor's victim. Suddenly his eyes widened, staring horrified at the woman on the bed. A second later her body simply exploded. Blood and tissue sprayed the sheets, the walls, everything in the room, except Santano Enrique, who didn't even flinch as it happened. For a moment everything glowed in a sickly bright red. Alja felt the surge of psychic energy the boy had emitted, felt it pushing against her shields. That part was obviously not confined to the memory.

"Ah Kaleb, an interesting solution, but _not good enough_. You were supposed to keep your shields up. Now I'll have to find a new one for your next practice." The Councilor's voice echoed through the room. Then everything turned white again. And another woman appeared on the bed. But apart from that the scene stayed the same. The recollection simply went on, as if there was no one to stop the flow of memories replaying in an endless loop.

Alja forced her concentration away from the horror in the room and on the boy again. His age was hard to tell. His appearance seemed to be fluctuating constantly. Sometimes he seemed as young as three, sometimes older, but never older than six or seven. He had been a child when he'd decided he was a monster that needed to be locked away and never see the outside world again.

"You left him in here! You never let him grow up!" she whispered horrified, her heart breaking all over again.

When she spoke, the scene in the room flickered for a moment, turned paler.

"Kaleb?" she asked, stepping closer. This was not the man she'd known, but this was what he had retreated to. This was the core of his mind, she had to save at all costs.

His eyes flicked to her, the memory his mind played on repeat fading entirely for a moment, the pressure on her shields easing at the same time. Then he shook his head at her. "You're not real." And the scene switched back on. The woman on the bed started to scream.

Alja stepped into his line of sight, going down on her haunches in front of him, but careful not to crowd him. "Why would you think that I'm not real?" she asked softly. The scene behind her dimmed again, the sound stopped fading too, as she drew his attention once more.

"I know you. You were in my dream, the one where I dream that I'm all grown up and strong. But I always wake up in here again. And you're gone." Slowly he lowered his hands from his ears, but still kept them fisted tightly. "Did you make the screaming stop?"

"It was just a memory, Kaleb. It stopped, when you focused on something else." She tried to explain.

"No, the screaming from outside," he clarified. At least she had his full attention now. The gruesome memory vanished completely.

"Yes, I stopped that. I shielded you. But you can build your own shields back up. You need to remember. You really were grown up. You just retreated inside your mind."

"Oh, then I'm dreaming again." He sounded far too resigned for such a young child. "I remember that dream. I was grown up but I still wasn't strong enough. You went away. It hurt. It always hurts, whatever I do. When I'm here, he's too. He wants me to go cold like him, but even when I'm cold I have no peace. But I can make peace for all of them. I can make true Silence. I can stop their screaming. _Stopthebloodstoptheheartorjusttearthemapart…_" He started mumbling again. Then he moved his fists as if he was pulling at something. The pressure on her shields increased again. And the strange energy she'd felt getting through them before strengthened. He did something to the Net, something not even her shields were able to stop completely.

"Kaleb wait! What are you doing?" she called out desperately.

"I'm pulling the strings of the Net. Can't you see?" He held out his little fists, as if she should actually see him holding something. "If I tear them all apart they will all go Silent, really silent, forever. They will never have to feel pain again."

Alja remembered the broken dataflow, the devastation Kaleb had caused when he'd saved her from the other Councilors. If he did that to the entire Net, it would truly silence their people forever. "No wait! You don't have to tear them apart. I can help you!" she pleaded.

"No you can't. You're just a dream." He said it as if he wished otherwise, his face still that of a child but his expression much older. Then he started to tear at the invisible threads again.

Without thinking Alja reached out and closed her own hands around the child's small fists. "Stop! Please!" When she touched him, something like recognition flickered over his face and his wary eyes filled with hope for a moment.

The monster was confused. It remembered all the grown-up dreams, the woman. In its dreams she had been different from anyone else and she felt even more different now. Her touch, it felt real. Something tingled inside its hands, making the strings it was holding cut a little less. Maybe, just maybe, it could find a way to escape. Maybe it could even go to that dream place, where the woman had come from. Maybe it could stay there this time. It stopped tearing at the strings and looked at her again.

"Please, can you make me see them?" Alja asked. She felt something from within his hands, something that called to her, but she couldn't make out what it was.

"You can't see them?" He pushed his fists that were still in her hands closer towards her face.

She shook her head. "No, I can't. It seems this is your very special ability. But I am in your mind – or your dream. You can make me see, what you see. Or even better you can help me touch them. Maybe I can take some from you, so you don't have to hold all of them alone."

For a moment he looked as if he concentrated really hard. Then a bundle of blackened, dried-up vines appeared protruding from his fisted hands and fanning out in all directions, passing through the mental constructs of his mind like they did through her shields. They weren't hindered by anything. How should they, if this was the Net itself?

And suddenly she knew. She had seen those vines before, when she was with the NetMind – no not vines – veins. – Those were the veins she'd been looking for ever since the NetMind first spoke to her. They were just dried up, shriveled to wiry, black ropes.

Her hands that should just have been mental representations of her physical form began to shake as if they were real. A chaotic mix of emotions rushed through her at the realization: Surprise, joy, the fear, that it might not be real, and even a little sadness and anger, that she hadn't seen it sooner hadn't been able to spare them so much loss and pain. But above all there was the hope that finally she had found a way to do what she'd been born to do. She couldn't have held it in, if she wanted so she just let it all flow out – right into Kaleb's small hands.

The monster gasped. It had never seen or felt something so beautiful, not even when it had dreamt of the woman before. It was as if all of her started to glow from inside, like an angel of light. And then she poured all of that light into its hands. It made the strings go soft and easy to hold and then it flowed inside them, shimmering in all colors like water that reflected a million rainbows in each wave, each ripple. It simply made them come alive.

Alja felt the pressure inside and outside her shields lessen as the wave of her projective empathy flowed out into the Net. More and more hope gushed into the mix of emotions that felt like it had waited all her life to be released from inside her – and it probably had. It was instinct to keep the connection, to continue a constant flow. And even though she couldn't see the effect outside yet, she knew this was the way she was supposed to heal the Net. The boy Kaleb's mind still insisted to call the monster just stared at her, eyes wide with wonder.

"You need to remember Kaleb! You're no monster!" She closed her hands even tighter around his. "You're no monster at all. You're the other half of the cure!" That was what the NetMind had been trying to tell her all the time. _Trust him. _Trust him so much that she dared to submerge herself inside his mind with her own unshielded so they could discover that unique ability that only worked with both of them connected on the deepest level.

He kept looking up at her for long moments still not moving from his crouched position. "I'm scared that this is not real. I'm scared that you go away again." So open, so vulnerable.

"I won't. I will fight until my last breath to stay by your side," she promised, her heart pierced by his innocent admission. "I won't lie to you. It will hurt – a lot, if you come back out there with me. There'll be pain and guilt. But there's also beauty, strength and life. So much life that is worth protecting. And I can't do that without you. I need you back."

"And if I don't want to remember?"

But he did. Just for a moment his mental representation had flashed from boy to man. He was still there. He just didn't want to be. _Who could blame him, after everything I put him through? _Alja thought. "Then I'll stay. I'll stay in here with you. I will never leave you alone again. Never." And she wouldn't, even if this frightened little boy, who believed she was just a dream, was all that was left of the man she loved more than her life.

"You could make me feel good. Make me want to go with you." He remembered how strong her empathic projection could be, overriding even his deepest fears and impulses.

"I will never do that to you again. I swear I won't." The echo of horror in the face of what she'd done to him, vibrated in that vow.

"I'll go with you," he said finally. And when he stood, his mental appearance changed, grew, until he towered over her. He seemed a little less substantial, less physical, his adult mind not yet fully restored. It would take some time for him to heal, to integrate that part he had shut off for so long. But he seemed to remember who he was.

He easily gathered the softened strings of the Net in one hand while he held the contact to one of hers allowing that strange connection, that combined his ability to touch the Net and hers to fill it with emotion, to continue. The psychic action seemed to come to him as natural as it did to her. Then he let Alja lead him out of the ruins of what had once been his mind.

Some of the structures repaired themselves automatically as they passed. Others he would have to reconstruct consciously later… Consciously… Memories of his adult life brushed by, reintegrated to form a coherent story. Slowly he began to realize what was happening. He still wasn't sure if this wasn't just another dream. But he never had been able to resist Alja anyway…

Alja.

She was here.

Impossible.

But he felt her through that new intense connection, that didn't break as they both stepped out onto the psychic plane and she went on to return to the star of her own mind that was still located close to his. But she wasn't shielded like he knew her anymore, her shields wrapped around his own star too to protect them both inside.

So when he saw that star, he knew he was still dreaming. All of this was just another beautiful dream that would be torn from him as soon as he opened his eyes. He knew it with absolute certainty, because what he saw couldn't be true: Instead of the small light Alja's mind had been after the rehabilitation or one of her ordinary camouflage minds from before, there was _Her_. The sun-mind, golden, glowing, exuding warmth like a real sun. His mind must have just picked up all the positive images in his memory and created a new dream to torment him with. But where should he escape to now? If that dream had found him even in the vault of the monster. _You're no monster at all. You're the other half of the cure! _How absurd! Of course, this couldn't be true. All of this was just too good, and he was _not good enough, _he had never been _good enough_.

"Open your eyes, Kaleb!" He heard the plea from the physical world. Alja's voice. But it wasn't real. Couldn't be.

_No, I don't want to wake up! I can't!_ he answered. It was the man who spoke the words of the frightened boy. He wasn't ready to let go of that dream. He would never be ready to face that harsh reality without Alja again.

"This is no dream. I'm standing right in front of you. You feel my hands on your face, don't you?" her voice insisted.

And he did feel her. Gentle and warm, her hands pressed against his face. Then something touched his forehead. Warm breath brushed over his skin as she continued to entreat him to return to the outside world.

"Please Kaleb! Remember when I told you the Net wouldn't let me die? It really didn't." Although she still had a hard time believing it herself. "The NetMind saved me."

_But you're not Her. How can you be Her?_

"I didn't know it was me. I didn't know it was always me. If you had let me open my shields that one day, you would've seen. This is what I was hiding inside my shields all the time. You have to understand that." Alja just kept talking, partly because she tried to explain to herself how all of this could have happened and partly because she didn't know what else to do to convince him, for she would not use her projection. "The NetMind didn't tell you, because it respects the secrets we protect within our shields." _Don't tell minds about mind's secrets._ That was why it also hadn't told her that Kaleb was the Ghost. Alja was frantically searching for an explanation how they could have been so close to the truth all the time. She had been raised in the world of Silence. So it was instinct to grab for logic now that emotion threatened to overwhelm her in spite of her empathic talents. "We were not used to trust each other on that level." And it had not only almost destroyed them, but their people too, their relationship a mirror of the problems of their entire race.

Kaleb looked at those shields she was talking of, waterfalls that rippled all around them, creating an impenetrable wall that encompassed both their mental stars. But there was more: The darkness that lived inside Alja too, the darkness she had never rejected like the rest of them, it reflected in a layer of protection that let none of her blazing light filter through into the Net.

And he knew she was right: It was logical. It was the most logical thing in the world: The sun-mind could only belong to Alja, a mind so warm and beautiful could only belong to a cardinal empath. And who else could have hidden from him for years, if not Alja with her layers upon layers of protective shielding, disguises and camouflage?

He dared to fully slip back into the physical world, still too doubtful to open his eyes. Soft lips pressed on his, their touch urgent, demanding. The smell of rain that surrounded him mixed with a heady note of flowers. Yes, this could only be Alja, the one person who never ran from his darkness, his cruelty. The one who would hold him, kiss him, even when he was literally bathed in the blood of his enemies.

Finally he opened his eyes.

Alja felt the moment Kaleb gave in. Without letting go of his face, she broke the kiss to look into his eyes. The night-sky of a cardinal gazed back at her, all traces of the lightning storm gone.

"Alja!" Her name flowed from his lips like a revelation, his voice barely more than a hoarse whisper, as if he still couldn't believe it. His hands came up to clutch her face needing to touch, to feel. "Alja, you're here. You're real."

"Forgive me, Kaleb! Please forgive me. I thought it was the only way to protect you _and_ the Net. But I didn't know it was always me," she repeated then, voice breaking, tears mingling with the rain on her face.

He didn't move. He just touched her, stared at her not daring to move lest she should fade again.

"Kaleb, say something!"

He couldn't.

All that time he had functioned. He hadn't broken, when she was taken from him. He had still fought Ming, when he was certain he'd never see her again. Even tumbling into insanity in the monster's prison he'd still been able to react somehow. Hurt, loss and catastrophe were things he knew, things he always expected. But getting Alja back finally did it: It was too much. He broke right there in front of her.

The strongest, most dangerous man in the PsyNet dropped to his knees in front of the woman he loved so much, her loss had devastated him to the very core of his soul. His arms locked around her, his face pressing into her middle. "You're there. You're alive." It was all he managed to get out, his voice raw, broken with emotion. His Tk and Tp spun out of control once again, but Alja's shields absorbed every bit of them, almost as if that too was part of her nature. And then the sobs just tore from his throat. Deep, desperate sounds.

Alja felt as if her insides would tear apart at that sound. What had she done? Would there ever be a chance to make this right again? "I'm sorry. I didn't know. I didn't know it was always me," she repeated over and over, her hands stroking his shoulders, his nape, his rain-wet hair, because words would never be enough, even touch wasn't. But it was all she had. She struggled in his arms until she was down on her knees herself, cradled his face in her hands again. "I didn't understand. Oh Kaleb, I never meant to break you so! Forgive me." It was only a whisper now.

At last Kaleb lifted his eyes to meet hers. "It doesn't matter." He said simply. "None of it matters. This is not about me forgiving you. This is me begging for my life, because if you leave again, I won't survive."

"I understand that now. If I had only known…" she began.

"No, you don't understand. It's not because you're _Her_. I should have seen that myself long ago. Because it was you the moment you first knocked on my office door. You always were my only hope." It was the one truth he needed her to understand. He had thought she did, had thought her empathy would have shown her. But if she had truly understood, she'd have never even gotten the idea to sacrifice herself for him. So he had to tell her. He had to lay bare whatever his cruel life had left of his soul: "You do not only have my heart. You have all of me. Without you I cannot exist. I don't know if that's what love is meant to be, but it is for me. And it is all I have to offer – even if it is never good enough."

Those words ripped her apart and reformed her anew at the same time.

She wanted to speak, tell him how much she felt the same. Wanted to tell him how much he was '_good enough_'. Wanted to wash away once and for all those last words, that shadow his 'teacher' still cast on his beautiful soul – _not good enough_. If only she could tell him how happy it made her just to be able to hold him again, how she could burst with delight at the realization that she had always been his hope and now had the chance to be forever. But the words, words that would never suffice anyway, wouldn't come. Emotion locked up her throat. So she just held him through the shivers that still rocked his powerful body. Held him as tight as she could. And then she remembered she didn't need words to show him how she felt. And she didn't have to project _at_ him either. Not anymore. She could share that beauty inside her with the whole world.

She felt for the new connection they shared, that conduit in him that allowed her to feed emotion right into the Net. And then she simply let go. Relief washed through her body, her powers flaring up beyond what she ever believed possible. For the first time she didn't have to halt them, didn't have to hide any longer. Because this was who she was, a healer who shared every bit of good she had in her.

And then the incandescent joy of an empath swept through the Net. A joy that was infused with hope so bright, even the finest strings of the Net – now turned to vessels of its lifeblood – became visible with it. Glittering, fracturing rainbows rippled along veins long dried up.

Millions of minds were touched by that joy and hope where they'd been struggling for life minutes ago. They watched in awe as Alja's black shields fell away, revealing the brightness and warmth of the twin star she and Kaleb had become. And the sun rose for the first time in the vast darkness that had been the Net for over a hundred years. Silver and gold. Soothing waters and warming light.

It didn't reach the darkest corners yet. It would take far more than a single outburst of joy and hope to truly heal the Net. But it gave the Psy a chance that they hadn't had for a long time.

Kaleb had barely come to believe Alja was truly with him again, when the full range of her powers rushed through him. It would have brought him through his knees, if he hadn't already been there. The sheer warmth of her filled a part of him that he had thought would always stay empty. The cold cutting abilities, he had always believed to be destined for destruction only, had merged with hers to reveal their true purpose: to open up pathways for life, to restore them, to enable healing.

_To enable healing sometimes life needs to be taken, sometimes things need to be destroyed first. _He'd had to tear up the Net, had to open those veins, so they could begin to accept her nurturing energy of life. Even in his most desperate moment he hadn't been the monster he always believed to be. _That's why you're important, not only to me but to the whole Net._ Alja had seen it from the start. And it had almost taken the annihilation of their world to make him believe it. At that moment Kaleb swore a silent oath to never forget again, to always live up to Alja's belief in him.

Enraptured by the iridescent beauty of the Net slowly coming back to life, Alja almost missed the telepathic knock on her shields.

_Alja! _

_Aden?, _she replied.

_We can't keep the people away much longer. _The Arrow's telepathic voice held utter wonder, but he still stuck to his role as an Arrow, alerting a teammate of possible danger.

They were still in a very public place after all. And ever since the threat of destruction had stopped, people tried to return to find out what in hell had happened. _You stayed?_

_As close as we could. We don't abandon one of our own. Now more than ever. _And along the telepathic transmission Alja felt something feeding back through the newly revealed veins. It was a faint emotional imprint: gratitude, hope, devotion.

Just as Alja thought she couldn't get any more happy, she saw hope for the only family she ever had: _Now more than ever._ Those four words no longer only held the cold loyalty of the assassin squad. With those four words Aden gave the Arrows a new purpose.


	86. Chapter 86

**Chapter 86**

Alja was surprised to find herself not in the Krychek HQ but in Kaleb's cabin in the mountains, after the teleport out of the destroyed park that would soon be buzzing with people.

"Shouldn't we be back in Moscow, dealing with the public, assessing the damage in the Net or something?" she asked, returning the gentle embrace he'd pulled her into. They were both still soaking wet from the rain, but Alja couldn't care less. She was only now getting used to be able to exist, to feel at all. Every sensation was welcome, even the cold, wet clothes that clung to her skin. And she thought she might never get enough of that new connection she shared with Kaleb, that one link that had always been missing, that one thing that had kept her, kept them both from becoming what they really were: The cure for the Net.

"You just _saved_ the Net. Whatever else there is, it can wait," he answered determined, a strange, intensity in his voice. "First I have to convince myself this is real."

"It was _us. We _saved the Net together," she insisted, lifting her gaze to meet his. "And do you really still not believe you're awake, that this is real?" It hurt to think that he still couldn't, that happiness was a concept so unbelievable to him. But she understood. It wasn't easy to accept for her as well. She was still dizzy herself from returning to the physical world and trying to process that they had finally managed to make her projection work. And even if they probably had a lot to deal with in the near future, the Net was safe for now. She felt it soaking up the steady trickle of empathic energy she still fed it through that wonderful new connection. "Don't you feel how real this is?"

"Yes, I do. But I just got you back. I'm not ready to share you. I need to be alone with you now." His voice deepened and his next word were a sensual promise. "I need to feel you, touch you, until I'm certain you are truly mine and then some more. And I'll only return with you, when I'm done loving you – which might never be."

As he said it, Alja sensed the raw passion surge up in him, the kind of passion she'd once so desperately pushed him for. And she knew this was not going to be an easy loving. But she didn't mind a few bruises, if it helped to take the agony of losing her out of his soul. After all the pain she'd put him through he deserved to still his hunger for her in every way he needed. And it wasn't as if she needed him any less. She was more than ready to give him everything.

So she expected him to crush her to him, to basically devour her, even to take out on her that deep pain she still sensed from him. But instead he just stood there watching her, one hand barely touching her hip the other lifted to cup the side of her face with the lightest touch. It made her insecure. What was she supposed to do? Even though she could read his emotions just fine now, she was lost. She felt his love, his devotion and that blinding need that arose from all the pain she'd left him alone with for weeks. But he didn't act on it, not the way she expected.

She could do nothing but stare back at him, her breath caught in her throat. He looked different. His hair was longer, some strands falling down to his eyebrows, dripping rainwater on his cheeks. His features seemed sharper than before she'd gone. Probably he'd lost some weight. His jaw bore two days of stubble and dark shadows ringed his eyes. He looked haggard.

Still it was the most beautiful sight she'd ever seen.

The water made the black shirt he wore stick to his skin accentuating every well-defined line of his muscles. It made her want to touch. Tentatively she lifted her hands to the collar of his shirt, still waiting for the storm to break lose. But they started to shake, making it hard to undo the buttons.

"Are you cold?" he asked at once.

"No." She felt as if she'd never be cold again as long as he was with her. Still the temperature in the room suddenly rose several degrees.

"Kaleb, you don't have to…" she began, but gentle fingers on her lips stopped her.

"Shh… just let me love you." A husky whisper.

"But I don't know what to…how can I ever make up for the pain I caused you?" The weight of all that had happened made the words sputter out of her, but her voice trailed away as he tipped up her chin and forced her to meet his eyes, the love in them just overpowering her.

"Alja, I'm not angry at you. If you ever had to make it up to me, you did it, when you pulled me out of that prison in my mind. You did what was in your nature and I could never blame you for that." He took both of her hands into his own and pressed a series of butterfly kisses on them until the trembling stopped. Then he gently pulled them towards his chest and held them close as if he was touching the most delicate porcelain figure. "I lost you. Not almost, not temporarily. I really lost you. I still need to feel that I got back all of you. Now will you let me love you the way I need to?"

She nodded and was finally calm enough to deal with the buttons of his shirt, when he placed her hands back on his collar. Still there was something different, something so new about this, it made her feel uncertain. But if that was what he needed, she'd handle it.

Only what Kaleb did next was nothing she was equipped to deal with.

His Tk and his Tp pushed at her shields, slowly wrapping around them, filling them up the moment she allowed him in. And then he was everywhere, all over her shields, her body, caressing her mentally and physically. He let her see his mind, what he saw when he looked at her: her beauty, the image of an angel, every hope he'd ever had, the way he wanted to touch her. It was far more than sexual. It was everything.

She barely managed to get his shirt off, before she started shaking again.

"Why are you still trembling?" This was about pleasure and nothing else. And he could tell she wasn't trembling from that alone.

Alja searched for the answer to that herself. This was Kaleb, the man she loved beyond life and who loved her back just as fiercely, the only man who ever incited such desire, such need for intimacy. And they had been intimate before. But there had still been boundaries between them, secrets, untold pain. Now…"I'm … I don't know what to expect." Maybe she sounded silly, but "this almost feels like the first time." And somehow it was true. Both of them had never been so fully open, so vulnerable.

She gave him the smallest but loveliest smile.

Kaleb couldn't help but smile himself. He'd never seen Alja shy and it was so sweet, it could have melted his heart, if she hadn't done so already. "You're right," he whispered and started to recall memories for her to see: The first time he touched her, caught her wrist, when she'd jumped at him, blade in hand, after he had teleported inside her room. And while he remembered, he gently and oh so slowly lifted her wrist now, stroking his thumb over her pulse. "This should have been the first touch." He stepped closer, letting her feel the warmth of his body.

The next memory was that of the day she'd demonstrated her projection. He placed his hands on the sides of her face just as he had then but so soft, as if she was made of petals he didn't want to crush. "This should have been the first kiss." Then he laid his lips on hers and just let them linger, showed her what detailed imagination of their bodies entwined in pleasure that single kiss had triggered in him even back then. It sent a flush of heat all through her body.

Kaleb wanted to remember every moment he'd ever spent with Alja to wash away all the hurt that had amassed in between. He needed to relive every small touch stolen in the shadows of his shattering Silence, share with her, what he hadn't been able to tell her then. So that was what he did. He recalled memory after memory, let her see what he'd thought, let her feel how he'd have liked to touch her back then. And more: He wanted to cherish every inch of the body that once more held the other half of his soul. So he slowly undid the zipper at the back of her dress and peeled the wet fabric off her skin. He took his time, stroking every patch of skin he bared, her arms, her back, her belly, her legs. When he had it all the way down, he gently lifted her feet to make her step out of it and pulled the flat white slippers off her feet, leaving her with only a bra and panties of a silky white fabric with a hem of delicate lace.

Alja blushed at the modest but sensual garments, having only ever worn practical black cotton before. But during her absence Kaleb seemed to have taken care to dress her only on the softest, most comfortable pieces of beauty. And the way he touched her now – She had never felt so adored. She had expected wild passion but this was far more intense.

It was as if that joint ability unlocked a whole new level of connection, she'd never imagined. It felt natural to allow his Tk close to her body. And the ease with which he used it told her, he was no longer afraid to hurt her either. When Kaleb came up after getting rid of her dress, she felt herself being lifted and pushed back out of thin air, expecting to be dropped on the narrow cot that had occupied the cabin when they'd entered. She was astonished to find her skin met silky sheets and the bed had suddenly changed to the wide one from his bedroom.

Kaleb found he still loved to surprise Alja. Even though she no longer hid her feelings from him, it was when he caught her off guard, that she seemed the most real. She even smiled a little playfully, when she let her hands slide over the new set of sheets, white, but again the same fabric as her dress from the ball. A part of him urged him to just tumble her to the bed and possess her in every way he'd thought he'd never have her again. But he wasn't done exploring. He wanted to savor every moment now and found he'd never had more patience. So he knelt before the bed, lifted her leg and started laying a line of kisses from her foot upward, accompanying it with his hands, indulging in the softness of her skin. He stopped just below her hip bone. Then repeated the whole thing on her other leg.

Finally the questions and insecurity that raced through Alja's mind quieted. Kaleb touched her with such devotion, such excruciating tenderness, there was no room for anything but pleasure. When both her legs tingled with the imprint of his kisses, he took one hand after the other and lifted it to his lips, kissing every fingertip, her palms, and then letting his lips wander slowly up her arm.

Since he knelt between her legs, her knees pressed against his hips as she clenched her thighs, starved for more intense touches in far more intimate places. As it didn't seem she'd get those anytime soon, she allowed herself to touch him back, smooth her hands over his shoulders, his back and up again through his hair. When he finally shucked off his shoes and crawled up on the bed with her, she decided to get rid of his pants. "Those are still wet, too." She whispered as if she needed an excuse to undress him.

A slow and very male smile was what she got in response. But he helped her with Tk when the damp fabric stuck to his skin, even gave a pleasured groan, as she firmly stroked her hands up his legs, his buttocks, his back. And then she was on her back, his hard, muscled body covering hers, his face buried against her neck, breathing in her scent. It was only when his warmth surrounded her that she realized that she had missed him, even when she was not herself, even when she had barely existed. Now he made her truly and very physically alive again, her nerves sizzling with the touches he gave her and the expectation of the _more_ she suddenly couldn't wait to get. And she didn't fight the urge to share what she felt. She just let the emotion well up, flow out through the conduit in Kaleb that connected her to the whole Net. She watched it on the psychic plane for a moment, mesmerized. Relieved, she saw that whatever Kaleb's power did to the emotion, she unguardedly poured into him, stripped it of the very personal note it held just now. It let through only that fluid warmth that refracted into the colors of the rainbow.

But Kaleb didn't miss that a part of it was meant for him alone. "You're a gift I can never deserve and I will never understand how you can love me back like that." His breath caressed her skin while he spoke. His lips followed, first on her neck, then along her collarbone to the hollow at the base of her throat.

The taste of Alja's skin alone was a thing Kaleb could get addicted to. And the gentle flush she reacted with, where only pale coldness had greeted him for weeks, made his body react in a way it hadn't in all that time: It filled with a raw sexual hunger that urged him to take, to possess in the most primal way. But he knew it wouldn't be stilled if he started to rush. So he stayed patient, continued his quest to cover all of her skin with kisses. But he only traced the hem of her underwear, avoiding the most sensitive areas.

"You make me glow simply by being close. That's how." Alja answered when she finally found her voice again. Kaleb was quickly making her incoherent with pleasure. But those weren't the violent flames of passion that burned out as fast as they flared up. Those were slow glowing embers that he kept stoking up to white heat with his gentle touches and kisses.

She had nowhere near as much patience as he seemed to have right now. She tried to pull him into a passionate kiss, which seemed to work for a few seconds. He pressed her close, hugging her tight, letting her wrap her legs around his body, feel the rigid length of him against her core. But then she suddenly lost balance and tumbled around with him.

What? How could she have lost balance from under him? And why was there suddenly no mattress under her _or_ his body? Why did everything feel so light?

She opened her eyes and broke the kiss, amazed. The bed was still there, several feet under their bodies that were hovering over it in an intimate embrace. "You're making us float!" she blurted out.

"Not exactly. I'm pushing away gravity around us, so you can move as you want." The explanation was cool but there was a teasing note to his voice and maybe even a hint of male arrogance.

Laughing she shook her head. "You're pushing away gravity … just like that. Of course, you do. What else?"

"What?" He raised his eyebrows while he couldn't hide his own smile.

"You defy the laws of nature just to give me pleasure and still you wonder how I can love you back." She gently stroked the side of his face, unable to believe this man was truly hers, had only ever been hers. She let another wave of happiness flow out through their bond.

Kaleb loved that he could partake in her emotions like that, feel the whole beauty of her wash through him. But it never affected him directly. She only let him read, but stuck to her promise not to direct the projection at him. Although, if this was what she felt, he wouldn't have minded at all. Actually, he realized, he would like it. He wanted that level of intimacy. And he had made her lose control before. He'd love the challenge to do it again.

Alja could've sworn Kaleb's smile turned a little roguish just before he started kissing her again, more fervently now, but still gentle and playful. He licked his tongue against hers but retreated once she opened up for more. Then he lightly grazed her lower lip with his teeth, again denying her more intense, satisfying sensations. And all the while his hands and his Tk roamed all over her body, teasing but never lingering. It drove her mad with pleasure, with unfulfilled lust. She lost all sense of time and space, floating weightlessly, while he touched her like that. She returned the caresses, loving to feel his firm muscles move under her hands. She even managed to pull off his briefs, but he never allowed her to rush him, relentless in his patience. At some point he must have removed her underwear too, probably using Tk. But she only noticed it when he stroked his hands up the sides of her bare breasts, oh so close to but never touching her nipples. A whimper escaped her. He drank it from her lips, deepening the kiss once more. And finally he pushed his thigh between hers closing his hands over her breasts at the same time. She came apart at once. Every inch of her skin was so oversensitized, the single touch was all it took. Pleasure washed through her whole body, making every muscle shiver and tense. Floating in the air Kaleb was the only possible anchor, so she locked her arms and legs around him tightly while the waves of pleasure pulled her under.

Kaleb savored every shiver of Alja's body, every involuntary moan that escaped her. She was his, still his. Only when she came apart in his arms, clinging to him like he was the center of her world, he could truly believe it. He wanted to feel her like this again and again so he started caress her anew before she even fully came down from her orgasm, even as it got harder to resist satisfying his own need. Her body was slick with a thin sheen of sweat that had replaced the dampness of the rain and it wound itself around him in pure desire. And with her mouth sucking and biting on his neck, her hands on his back, his chest she gave back as good as she got. He couldn't suppress an aroused shudder, when her nails scraped across his nipples. But he was determined to relish every moment they had. Too vivid was the memory of thinking he could never be with her like this again. And as much as he liked to taste her all over, he kept returning his gaze to hers, making sure sensual torture was the only 'discomfort' she felt.

It was when she whispered in his ear that his resolve to prolong foreplay as long as possible started to waver.

"Kaleb," she pleaded. "I need you inside me now." She sounded as if she'd be in pain if he didn't obey her wish.

And he had no resistance left.

She had already opened herself up to him her legs slung around his hips. So he only had to move up a little to slide into the welcoming, wet heat of her. He almost came at the sensation of her enclosing him, her muscles squeezing him tight. But he still wasn't done yet. He didn't have her where he wanted her, ready to share her pleasure on the most intimate level. Closing his hands over the firm mounds of her butt, he held her in place for his possession.

Alja felt relief and arousal alike when Kaleb finally pushed inside her. This she had missed too, while she was without body. But the short flash of the painful memory vanished when he looked into her eyes as he started to move. It felt as if he reached into her soul and she in his. It was the most intimate moment they'd ever shared, their eyes and bodies locked, touching nothing but each other.

He moved so in sync with her rhythm, filling her up, hard and deep, it didn't take long for the pleasure to peak again, tearing helpless cries from her and leaving her trembling in his arms once more.

Kaleb smiled. Slowly he felt alive again, confident Alja wouldn't vanish to the realm of dreams. But when he started to move yet again, she frowned at him. "Too much?" he asked.

"No, but you're doing that control thing again," she replied a little sulkily.

"Don't let me." He whispered against her ear and let her feel his smile against her cheek.

He wasn't holding back, Alja realized. He was playing. It made her frustration evaporate and left her eager to dedicate herself to the sensual challenge. But when she started to roll her hips against him, he held her in place with firm hands.

"Not like that." He gave her the most sinful smile.

It took her a moment to understand what he wanted her to do. "But I swore I'd never do that to you again!" How could he even want her to?

"And that's not right." He caught her gaze again and enclosed her in the gentlest embrace. Then she felt his Tk wrap all around her body in a single, tender caress that pressed her even closer to him than she already did by herself. "You're not afraid of my powers. I don't want to be afraid of yours."

The affection he surrounded her with and the sheer intimacy of the moment made it hard to remember the guilt, but she mustn't forget. "But I betrayed you, using the projection. I hurt you…"

He cut her off with a kiss, speaking his next words against her lips. "Then make up for it by giving me pleasure. Let me feel what you feel." A light nip on her lower lip. "If you like what I do to you, repay me by sharing." Slowly he started moving again in that maddening rhythm that made thinking very hard.

But not too hard to realize, he was coaxing her into submission. He was still teasing, playing, pushing her to let the guilt go, like she had done to him so many times. That alone would have melted all her resistance. But he was right too: There was no better way to compensate for his pain than sharing the pleasure he gave her. So she allowed herself to be coaxed. And the next time he brought her close to the edge she let the sensations and feelings it brought flow out with the same force they slammed into her, not into the bond of their shared ability this time, but right into him.

It took only a split second before she felt Kaleb succumb to the effervescent desire, the projection running over his damned control as if it was nothing. His thrusts got deeper, more intense as he climaxed until his body tensed and his groan mingled with her soft cries of lust. He lost grip on the Tk and Alja's shields immediately caught the excess energy. This time she saw the sparks again as their powers clashed and for a moment they seemed to rain upwards. Then the two of them crashed into the softness of the mattress.

Kaleb instinctively braced himself on his knees and elbows so he wouldn't crush Alja, but before he could start to worry, if that was enough to not hurt her, he heard the delighted sound she made. Even as little aftershocks pulsed through her, a small, feminine giggle bubbled out of her. And for once Kaleb didn't feel the urge to ask if she was ok. He knew she was. He felt it.

* * *

Kaleb still seemed to have all the time in the world. He kept Alja pressed to his side, not showing the slightest inclination to leave the bed anytime soon. When she asked about returning again, he simply said: "Most of them still live. That's more than they could ever hope for not only two hours ago. We can afford some time for ourselves."

It wasn't like him to neglect seizing control of the situation like this. So she gave him a questioning look.

To her surprise he smiled. "I'm not being irresponsible here. The moment we face the public, all hell will break lose. We probably won't get a minute of rest for a while. And you never used your powers on a scale like this before. It will tire you at some point. You need to rest," he explained. Then he admitted: "And I do too. I didn't really plan to have to keep up much longer than this." He'd pushed himself to exhaustion, not sleeping or eating enough.

He was protecting her. Of course he was. That made much more sense. But for the first time he cared for himself as well. So Alja could accept it all the more easily. Satisfied she snuggled up closer to him, just to feel him brush against her on the psychic plane a moment later.

_We can take a look at the Net, if you want to make sure it's alright_.

The first thing she saw, when she took a glance at the psychic plane, was that Kaleb was ready to slip out of her mental shields. _Wow!_ She let herself slip back to the physical plane to give him a disbelieving glance. "How did you rebuild your shields so fast?"

"I just went insane, not weak or imbecile," he stated with mock arrogance. When she rolled her eyes at him he added: "And I might have copied one or two of tricks from a very talented shield specialist."

"Is that so? Too bad, I would have liked you to be dependent on me a little longer," she replied lightly, happy he was back to his old self enough to show that easy, male confidence again.

"Be dependent on you? Woman did you get anything that happened today? If I needed you any more I wouldn't be able to function," he replied exasperated but laughing at the same time. It was a strange sensation, a chaotic mix of the horror of a near death experience and the euphoria of still being alive. Probably humor was the only way to deal with everything that _had _happened.

But Alja was suddenly very serious again. "We were really lucky. Weren't we?"

"If I were still Silent, I would say our chances were astronomically small." He shuddered at the thought of how close it must have been. They hadn't yet talked about what exactly had happened in Paris, but before he'd teleported them out, he'd seen the cold ash of Sienna's X-fire all around them in the park. "But that wouldn't do the situation justice. I think we were far more than lucky."

He sensed Alja starting to tremble, a second before she burst into tears.

She hadn't lost Kaleb like he'd lost her. She hadn't allowed herself to feel that pain but for those last frightened moments in the rehabilitation chair. And then she'd just stopped. But she hadn't grieved, hadn't really experienced it. That was why it hit her even more unexpected: how close to not making it they'd come, how badly it had gone wrong before they had been given this miracle of a second chance. And everything she hadn't felt suddenly descended on her, swamped her in fear and desperation, gratitude and relief all at once.

Kaleb didn't ask. He understood Alja had to go through this. He just held her tight until it ebbed away, faded into the background. They both would need some time to fully heal.

When she spoke again, she sounded thoughtful. "In the end even Ming and Tatiana had a part in it. If they hadn't found a way to remove those shields you built, the NetMind couldn't have gotten me back."

He remembered the NetMind's request to open up the black shields to let the light in. He hadn't understood back then, that in his need to protect what was left of Alja, he'd created shields not even the neosentience could permeate. He'd rooted them deep in the fabric of the Net. Tatiana's viruses only got through by dissolving the connection to Alja's mind itself. "You remember how it happened?"

She shook her head a little confused. "No, I just – _know_ it was them. I wasn't conscious, but I wasn't fully gone either. It's hard to explain. Things keep coming back in fragments. Like when I suddenly knew the veins for what they were. When I look out there, I know a lot of things I didn't before. I was one with the NetMind. I think it changed me." Only then Alja realized that she was only just beginning to unravel the mystery of her return. "I understand the Net now in ways I will never have words to describe. I can feel the its life itself now. Or maybe I always could. I just didn't understand what it was. I always thought it was just the residual that made me so desperate, like I was running out of time. But it was also the Net. I felt its life fade away." That pressure was gone now. It wasn't healing fast yet, but the bleeding out had stopped. "Still… It shouldn't have worked, you know," she began. "Even if the NetMind preserved my mind, there shouldn't have been a way back. I researched it before I let them take me: Rehabilitation usually removes the mental anchors the brain needs to function consciously, to hold the mind together. It should have rejected me, when the NetMind put me back."

"I think we may have the Changelings to thank for that." Kaleb wanted to explain further but suddenly remembered something. "I promised I'd take that secret to my grave. So you'll have to ask them yourself. But I think they'll tell you. You'll like it."

"Hm, yes. We'll we have to talk to them at some point anyway. We need to thank them and probably apologize of course."

He blew out a breath. "That might just be the understatement of the century. We owe them both our lives. I think we should start making amends."

"That's new. You trying to be that kind of good." Alja wondered: How much had he changed while she was gone? What else had she missed?

"Remember that shield specialist I told you about? She's really good with emotions too. Told me to let go of my guilt and try making up for what I've done. Since that is a lot, I'd better start now."

"Being good _and_ joking? They must've rehabilitated you too and put someone else back in," she laughed.

But the way he kissed her in response was very much Kaleb, her Kaleb. When he pulled back after he'd indulged enough for the moment, she gave him his favorite mischievous smile. She really could get used to this: Lying in bed with him just enjoying the moment. And hopefully they had a lifetime of opportunities to do so, after they finally dealt with the mess that still waited for them.

And Kaleb obviously thought the same: "Are you ready to take a look at the Net?" They couldn't avoid facing it at some point. And it would be easiest as long as they were still here, in their little bubble of comfort, before they were confronted by all the parts of the situation, that were still not right.

He took her inside the Ghost's firewalls and they swept through the Net together, assessing where the life had already returned, gathering information about the casualties of the near cataclysm the Net had endured.

There was damage. People had died. Sections of the Net were still unreached by Alja's healing influence. Not all Psy were ready to let go of Silence that easily. In other sections emotion bloomed beautifully, but often left chaotic connections the Psy weren't used to. But if Silence had taught them one thing it was discipline. Some of them struggled, but they were readjusting. And fortunately it was the younger minds for whom it seemed to be easiest. And that was not the only thing about the young ones.

"Do you see the pattern in the drop-out data?" Kaleb asked after they'd collected enough to estimate where Kaleb's outburst had demanded most lives.

"The rates are highest in some facilities…" Alja hesitated for a moment then added amazed: "No children! There's no one under twenty whose link broke."

"Yes, and the facilities you speak of were the ones for the criminally insane." Kaleb confirmed when they'd retuned to the physical plane at last.

"It seems the ones who died were the ones submerged deepest in Silence." Psychopaths, those who'd lost all connection to emotion. "Their strings must've been weakened the most. They snapped first when you strained them." After a short pause she mused: "Maybe it's not accidental, maybe it's part of the cure, part of the Net healing itself."

"But it does bother you." It wasn't a question. Of course it would. It was who Alja was. Given the chance she'd probably have found the good in every one of those who hadn't made it.

"I would have liked to help everyone, but sometimes it's not possible." There was heaviness in her voice. But it didn't linger. "It's alright. All of this is more than we could've hoped for. I'm grateful it turned out like this."

"You're still used to death." He was glad she could deal with it, but it worried him, that she still couldn't let go of all of that hardness.

"That will probably never change. And this –" she snuggled up even closer to him, letting the empath in her rise to the surface, her eyes swimming with pools of gold. "I think I can only ever be that soft with you. I will always be both: an Arrow and a healer. But I am glad I can be more than an Arrow now. I don't want death to define all of me any longer."

"So you'll change your name, too?"

The question surprised her. Alja hadn't thought about it before, but Kaleb had a point. Dardo literally meant Arrow. It was a generic name someone in the Squad once gave to the girl whose identity Alja had been given, after she died in an outburst of her deadly powers, providing the disguise necessary for her survival. But the one her parents had given her didn't seem to fit either, even if it was the only thing she had left of them. "I don't know. Espérance Milhaud is a frightened little girl, who died a long time ago. That's not me anymore… I _am_ Alja." She had become who she was being Alja, fought for her life being Alja, returned to the man she loved being Alja. "As for the last name, I could probably just choose any…"

"Do you want mine?" Kaleb's voice was so low she almost missed what he said.

She stared at him, heart starting to race, the words stuck in her throat.

"It comes with a burden. Maybe it's not even better than to be known by the name of a feared assassin squad. It's…" He trailed off.

Kaleb had wanted to catch her off guard again, see the surprise brighten her eyes. And it obviously worked. But was that really a good thing? What if the surprise was unwelcome? He should have been content with what he had. Alja did love him. He knew that. But going for forever? None of them had planned on even existing at this point. How could he ask her to commit to him like that?

"Kaleb are you … did you just propose?" Alja's eyes were wide, the stars in them trembling a little. But was it expectation or consternation?

"No, of course not. What is to propose? You're mine, I'm yours. It's a fact, nothing to propose. You don't have to take my name to prove anything." He put on the arrogant face that usually made her laugh and tried to make it sound as if he really was that confident.

But there was an edge of insecurity in his voice, Alja couldn't quite figure out. Damn her empathy for not recognizing the reason behind the emotions she perceived. Maybe it was best to play this lightly, give him an out of whatever made him suddenly uncomfortable. So she answered with a roll of her eyes. "And here I thought you were trying to be romantic."

Kaleb's heart clenched. For the first time since Alja returned, he tried not to feel so hard. He didn't want her to feel pressured by how bad he wanted forever with her, not if she didn't feel the same. "I was," he admitted seriously. "Until I realized there's probably not much romantic about being associated with me like that. I have a ton of enemies, a reputation for being insane, which is probably still true..."

Her smile turned gentle, when she understood. "I would love to have your name," she said calmly but decidedly and she showed him exactly how she felt, an overwhelming rush of empathic energy surging through their bond. She never wanted him to doubt that he would always be way more than _good enough_ for her.


	87. Chapter 87

**Epilogue**

The first weeks after were hell.

Days rushed by with them barely meeting all the demands that were raining down on them. It was unbearable to tell people, who had only just begun to hope, that it wasn't possible to bring everyone back from rehabilitation, and it was even harder to still watch people die in a war that unfortunately didn't just miraculously stop with them finding the cure for the Net. It took time for the fighting to recede. Not every Psy was ready to let go of the power and the promise of stability, Silence had offered for so long. But slowly it stopped. The last confrontations of pro- and anti-Silence supporters ended, more and more often nonviolent.

For most Psy feeling wasn't as alien as they might have expected. Silence had after all been against their nature. But there were those who had trouble adjusting to emotion. And so far they found only temporary help in the centers: it was possible keeping up some parts of their conditioning intact for a while, even under the influence of the projection in the Net. But it left an unsolved problem. One they hadn't even started to target, because Kaleb had been right: the constant amount of psychic energy they had to spend to feed emotion into the Net, often left them both exhausted. So exhausted that even Kaleb with his knack for control, he still nurtured too much for Alja's taste, was thankful Anthony and Nikita took over some of the political matters. After all their entire system had to be rebuilt, an omnipotent council no longer an option with a populace that was allowed to feel and think for themselves.

At least the other fractions didn't make it as hard as they could have:

Tatiana had simply vanished never to be seen in or out the Net since the almost-breakdown and had so far not even been found by the Arrows. But none of them had received any attacks on their shields again, so they could put that worry off at least for a while.

Shoshanna was suddenly eager to offer her medial influence to 'set things right', which was accepted courteously and rewarded with an Arrow 'guard' that ensured her 'personal safety' on the mental and physical plane twenty-four-seven.

SnowDancer and DarkRiver were already involved and continued to help, after both their alphas had made it very clear to them that they had exactly one chance not to 'fuck it up again'. And they hadn't looked at Alja while they'd said it. But Kaleb found he could deal quite well with it. They were reasonable negotiating partners and he had no intention to ever again betray his loyalty to the people who had a part in saving Alja. So 'fucking up' wasn't even an option.

* * *

It got a little easier, when after a few weeks the first empaths began outing themselves in the Net. It was as if they couldn't help it. Even with the danger from pro-Silence activists still looming over their heads they couldn't fight the urge to help. Together with Sascha and the Forgotten, Alja found a way to amplify the effect of her powers through those formerly latent empaths, reducing the strain on her and Kaleb at least a little.

And one day, in the middle of autumn, after another working meeting, Alja voiced a very distinctive hope to Sascha. "If this effect holds, then maybe we'll finally get enough of a break to do the paperwork for the marriage."

Sascha's eyes went huge and she almost dropped the cup of hot cocoa, she always made for their meetings ever since she'd discovered it was a passion both empaths shared. "You're going to marry? That's wonderful! Do you want me to help with the planning?"

"Um, there's not much to plan. We'll just have to turn in the paperwork," Alja retorted.

"You're not going to have a celebration?" The idea seemed absolutely anathema to the empath who'd been living for years now with changelings, who loved nothing better than to celebrate the matings of their pack members.

"Well Kaleb did say something about a ceremony in father Perez' church." She had met the man, who had saved Kaleb's life, a few times now. He was among those, who represented the human fraction during some of the strategic meetings. "It's nothing big or religious even, but I think it's important to him. He trusts Xavier like he otherwise only trusts Judd." When Sascha still looked at her uncomprehending she added: "It's not like we have friends or family to celebrate with. We're not that much like humans or changelings – yet." She smiled, silently hoping that soon they would be.

Sascha gave her a very knowing smile back, but left it alone after requesting: "Tell me when you've decided on a date, so I can send you some chocolate cake."

* * *

Alja hadn't really thought about her conversation with Sascha again. Of course she'd told her the date, because she really was developing an addiction to anything related to chocolate and her and Kaleb's busy schedule rarely left time for anything but nutrition bars. But she had planned to make the day count: This time she had relied on Silver's help to find a suitable dress and the woman had outdone herself finding one that was made of layers of flowing white silk and had the same backless cut as the one she'd once worn to the ball. It was perfect. So perfect that Kaleb was sorely tempted to pass on the ceremony and just take her to his cabin again.

But in the end his desire to have her promise forever to him won and he teleported them to the small San Francisco church. That was where Alja found she had gravely underestimated the other empath, not being used to something like genuine friendship.

Soft organ music sounded from inside and where she'd expected to be greeted by Father Perez alone, she found the church fully decorated with lush flower bouquets and filled with at least forty people. Almost all of the SnowDancer and DarkRiver changelings they'd worked with were there with their mates and some of the humans and Forgotten, among them Katya and Dev. Then she spotted Nikita and Anthony and even some of Kaleb's most trusted employees, looking a little lost with their formal clothing and unused smiles. But her heart almost stopped when she saw the people right at the front: There were some of her closest comrades from the Arrow Squad. She'd never seen Aden, Vasic or any of the others in anything but their uniforms or casual clothing to blend in, but today they had dressed up in suits, that made them look almost approachable. And above all it made them look like they might have a life beyond their past.

She barely took two steps into the church before she burst into tears.

Kaleb was at the brink of sending everyone away, when Alja started to cry, but then realized it was with joy. He searched for Judd in the crowd and telepathed to him, while he tried to steadily walk his still happily sniffing bride down the aisle. _What is this?_

_Your wedding, obviously_. The other man was standing in the very front of the church and was wearing a smirk that was visible even in the back where they'd entered. _You know, some of us have begun to consider you friends and thought you deserved a proper reception. _

_This was _your_ idea?_

_No, it was Sascha's, but I pitched in as soon as she told me. Hawke and Lucas did too, though they probably just want to see you uncomfortable in an emotionally charged, social situation. _

_I'm not sure I want friends anymore. _He gave back, not hiding his own grin. Then he added more seriously: _Thank you._

_You're welcome. But you realize this is more than a gesture of friendship, don't you? The people here, they wanted to see this. You two are a symbol of hope to everyone. _

Kaleb looked around at the expectant faces and realized Judd was right. Healing the Net was not the only thing they did. They also set an example. For other Psy but also for humans and changelings. Everyone wanted to see, if there was more to the fall of Silence than the official statements, like the suspension of rehabilitation and Protocol training.

Well, at least that part was easy. Now that he didn't have to keep his love for Alja a secret to survive, he couldn't hide it if he wanted to. His lips just stretched into a smile whenever he looked at her, which he did a lot, just to watch the stars in her eyes dance with joy. And he simply had to touch her all the time. He could barely keep his hands off her naked back long enough to put the damn ring on, when the time came. And when Father Perez finally told him to kiss the bride, Alja had to telepathically remind him they weren't alone, even though the whooping and cat-calling crowd of changelings should have been hard to ignore.

He learned what Judd had meant about Hawke and Lucas wanting to see him uncomfortable, when they stepped out of the church. Both alphas pulled him into a bone crushing hug that made him glad the Arrow's med-tech had fixed him so well. Afterwards they made sure they stood close enough to watch as the other congratulants made their way up to him. They seemed to be having the time of their lives as he received and awkwardly returned multiple hugs and pats on the back from the changelings. As much as he loved touching Alja, he found it hard to deal with that much physical contact with virtual strangers.

_Are those two drunk already? _Alja telepathed to him, after she'd perceived a wave of their gleeful joy. _As far as I know about such occasions, they shouldn't be until much later. _

_I don't think so. _He answered helplessly.

Alja shook her head shortly but she clearly was totally in her element. Hugging and smiling at everyone seemed to be her second nature and probably it was her, who was a little intoxicated by all the positive emotion that surrounded her. He felt bursts of projection surge down the conduit into the Net every now and then. Alja was truly happy and more than ready to share every bit of it. So she even pulled each of her surprised comrades into a tight hug.

Glad that the hard part was over, when the assassins lined up stiffly in front of him and, as expected, made no attempts at physical contact, Kaleb relaxed a little.

"Congratulations on behalf of the Arrows." Aden only stretched out his hand to shake Kaleb's shortly. But to his surprise he went on afterwards. "We have researched the appropriate proceedings of an emotional union like yours. It is common among the feeling races that the family of the woman speaks some words to the man. Since the Squad is the only family Alja ever had, we perceive it our duty to warn you."

Suddenly all the chitchat of the guests seemed to have stopped. He had no idea where this was going. But it seemed to be important. So he asked guilelessly: "About what?"

"Don't fancy yourself inviolable because of your power. If you ever hurt her, you have a squad of elite assassins to pay you back. And that might get uncomfortable even for you." Aden finished completely straightfaced and serious.

Out of the corner of his eyes Kaleb saw Lucas and Hawke lean on each other wheezing with suppressed laughter.

Before he could say anything in response Alja suddenly burst out at Aden: "Oh no, wait! You did _not_ just say that. That is changeling culture. You're not going to import that primitive behavior into a society as sophisticated as ours."

Most of the humans and all of the changelings seemed to have a hard time keeping a solemn expression. Their alphas were openly barking with laughter by now. "Sophisticated my ass!" Hawke managed to get out between fits of laughter. "I don't want to kill your buzz lady, but you do remember the stunt your husband pulled right after we saved your ass? I think you're at least as bad as us under all that 'sophisticated' attitude."

After Kaleb's performance back then and her own very irrational decisions, it was obvious protectiveness probably ran as deep in the Psy as it did in changelings and humans. So she couldn't really argue with his view. And she didn't have to, because at that moment Kaleb replied to Aden absolutely unruffled. "I will heed your warning. I promise it will never be necessary to remind me of that again. Nothing you could do to me, would be worse than seeing her less than absolutely happy."

Alja covered her eyes with one hand awkwardly, but she also couldn't suppress a smile.

* * *

Sascha and her helpers from both packs had managed to install a full wedding reception in the backyard behind the church. In between its lush greens and flowers the garden now hosted several gazebos with small sitting areas and a large buffet table, filled with the most delicious foods, among them a three tier chocolate wedding-cake.

As the day progressed, some of the changelings tried to make them partake in all sorts of weird wedding traditions, of which some, Alja was sure, they'd just invented to taunt them. At least they weren't the only targets of their attempts at 'Psy-resocialization', as they called it. Some sentinels and lieutenants of DarkRiver and SnowDancer had made it their task to teach Silver, Anastasia, Aden and Vasic to dance. And Alja hadn't enlightened them that they could simply refuse.

Even Kaleb seemed to relax more and more and even enjoy himself as long as she wasn't dancing too long with other men, especially changelings; something he knew to prevent by dancing with her himself most of the time.

As the night descended and the music got slower, Alja remembered that first time they'd danced at the ball. It was only a few months ago, but it seemed a lifetime. Everything was different now, so much more beautiful. The soft lights of hundreds of little lanterns that illuminated the gazebos and the little makeshift dancefloor certainly helped to make the ambience far more magnificent. But now it was so much more. She had thought it was complete bliss just to sway across the dance floor in Kaleb's arms back then, her only regret that it would never be real. But not only had it become more real than she could have ever imagined. It no longer was forbidden or had to be a secret to touch like this, to feel this much. It was even desired, necessary.

Now she could lean into him all she wanted, luxuriate in the warmth and strength of his body. She could nuzzle at his throat, kiss him deeply and even flip off the changeling, who had suggested they should get a room, when she curled her body around her husband's a little too enthusiastically. She could finally just be who she was.

Almost automatically she let yet another burst of her happiness flow out into the Net – only to receive a short spike of worry from Kaleb.

"You're doing this all evening, projecting into the Net. You must be exhausted," he explained.

It wouldn't help to lie even had she wanted. Kaleb had to process whatever she poured into their connection on his side. So he knew exactly how much energy it took. "Oops sorry, I keep forgetting you have to do your part too," she replied, not raising her head that had dropped against his chest approximately three songs ago.

"Are you saying you're not even noticing what it takes out of you or when you need rest?" He leaned back so far she had to lift her head and meet his eyes. He looked ready to teleport her out and tie her to a bed and not in a kinky way.

"No, I know exactly what it takes. I think I could fall asleep while we're dancing by now. But I don't want this day to end." She still wasn't fully used to the idea of having another day, much less a good one. "Let's be irresponsible just for tonight."

He chuckled, nodding. But then his gaze became intense once more. "I wish, it could be easier for us," he whispered.

"After everything we've been through I doubt we'd know what to do with '_easy_' anyway. '_Possible_' will be enough," she replied, the little mischievous smile, he loved so much, filling her face.

And just like that it was a little easier. He kissed her long and deep, while he answered telepathically, his mental voice a caress: _You're right, _'possible'_ will be just fine._

_The End_


End file.
